‘Our bowling is on the back foot’, feels Mumbai Indians' coach Shane Bond

GT’s Shubman Gill (right) celebrates his half-century against Mumbai Indians in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Pics/AFP

Five-time champions Mumbai Indians' have a tough task ahead to qualify for the play-offs in the IPL-16 following their 55-run defeat to defending champions Gujarat Titans here on Tuesday.

While the MI bowling again leaked a copious amount of runs - 77 to be precise in the final five overs - their batters imploded while chasing 208 under lights at the Narendra Modi Stadium.

Shane Bond

MI's bowling coach Shane Bond admitted it was a repeat of their last match where Punjab Kings looted 96 runs in the final five overs at the Wankhede on Sunday.

Disappointing show

"It [the defeat] is a combination of things. We're not executing what we need to. We've got pretty simple plans. Watch how we bowled in an area. We got hit and immediately resorted to some changes. It's disappointing when we can't distinguish plans when we are on the back foot during difficult run chases," Bond said at the post-match media interaction on Tuesday night.

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"We gave [GT's David] Miller and [Abhinav] Manohar free hits, and once we let these players get runs, they took the game away from us," added Bond.

Talking about MI's problems in the death overs, Bond said: "That's the disappointing thing from our point of view because we talk a lot about making it hard for the batters to get runs. So, we just have to be better in our decision-making and execution."

Rashid Khan two good

As Bond rightly pointed out it was a tough day for MI. They lost two wickets in an over thrice in 20 overs. First, Rashid Khan (2-27) got rid of Ishan Kishan and Tilak Varma within the space of three balls in the eighth over. Then, Titans's left-arm mystery spinner Noor Ahmed (3-37) dismissed Cameroon Green (33, 26 balls, 3x6) and Tim David (0) in the space of two balls in the 11th over. MI again lost two wickets in the 18th over, but by then, the battle was already lost.

"Rashid and Noor are really tough to pick in the nets. It has been a year-and-a-half, and I can't pick Noor in the nets so I'm sure for a new batter, playing from some other team, it's very hard to pick him," GT's Abhinav Manohar said.

Elaborating on GT's performance, the batter added: "To be honest, I feel it was easier to bat in the second innings because of the dew, but our bowlers really bowled well and they [MI] lost a few wickets early which didn't allow their batsmen to come out and play their game."

With this impressive win, the Titans have joined Chennai Super Kings at the top with 10 points while Mumbai Indians need a near miracle to win at least five of their last seven games to try and qualify for the knockouts.