"Our batting performance was very average," Gill said at the post-match presentation. "I think the wicket was alright, to be honest. If you see our dismissals, the ball I got out to had nothing to do with the pitch. Even the way Wriddhi [Wriddhiman Saha] bhai got out had nothing to do with the pitch, and Sai [Sudharsan] got run out. So I don't think it had anything to do with the pitch. Just a bad batting performance and poor shot selection, I would say."

After being sent in, Titans lost Gill in the second over, caught at extra cover off Ishant Sharma. Two overs later, Saha played on against Mukesh Kumar, and by the end of the powerplay, they were 30 for 4.

"We were definitely below par tonight. You can make all the excuses in the world, but at the end of the day, we didn't play good enough cricket.

"You are not going to win too many games when you are three or four wickets down in the powerplay. A score of 120-plus would have been at least something presentable for the bowlers to bowl at. But below 100 was just not enough. So, yeah, it's one of those things and we just couldn't get any momentum. Rashid [Khan, who scored 31 off 24] came in and played with good intent, and kind of proved maybe playing with a lot of intent was the way forward."

In the last two seasons, a distinct feature of Titans' success was different players stepping up in different games. This time, in the absence of Hardik Pandya (traded) and Mohammed Shami (injured), they have seemed over-reliant on Gill in the batting department, and Rashid Khan and Mohit Sharma in the bowling.

"We got absolutely pumped but the thing is, if we had won tonight, we would have been four [wins] from seven [games]," he said. "It just was one of those games where I don't feel anything went our way. As I said a couple of games ago, I don't feel there are any areas of major concern. There have been one or two games where we haven't played to our potential but if everyone just plays the way they can, I think everything is pretty sweet. I think it's just looking at ourselves in the mirror, making sure that we're ready for the next game.

"Everyone wrote us off the last two years and we were in the finals both years. So it's just about making sure everyone sticks to their contribution for the team and, most certainly, it was just one of those results tonight."