IPL 2017: 5 things that went wrong for Gujarat Lions (GL) this season

Fragile bowling line-up

Lions’ leading wicket-taker in IPL 2016 ended this year’s tournament with just three wickets

With the injury cloud over Dwayne Bravo, Gujarat Lions knew that they needed the rest of their bowling attack to step up if they were to make the playoffs. Unfortunately, that simply didn't happen and the perfect example of that was their leading wicket-taker from IPL 2016, who was a pale shadow of his former self.

Dhawal Kulkarni picked up 18 wickets at an economy of under 7.5 last season but only managed three from six matches in IPL 2017. Ravindra Jadeja picked up just five wickets all season, Pradeep Sangwan, Praveen Kumar, Ankit Soni were all tried at various points during the season but none of them made any impact.

James Faulkner was disappointing and their only bright spark aside from Andrew Tye, who unfortunately got injured, was Basil Thampi. Although the 23-year-old from Kerala was amongst the wickets (11 in 12 matches), when you are relying on a bowler who hadn't played in the IPL before this season, you know you are in trouble.

It didn't help that despite the experience that they had in the bowling department, there wasn't a leader in the bowling line-up. And the only time they looked like winning, was when Tye was firing on cylinders and took responsibility, which unfortunately didn't last for too long as injury meant he played just six matches.