Chennai Super Kings (CSK) coach Stephen Fleming rued the fact that none of the set batsmen batted through the innings, after his side’s loss to the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), on Wednesday, 7 October.
“Ideally you have one or two players that are in bat through. If you give an opportunity to an IPL team, an opening, they have got some quality players to take it. Today with Narine holding overs back, made it very difficult in the back end. If we could have got one of those players to [score] 75-plus and continue that partnership for 4-5 overs, then the game might have been a lot different.”
CSK were cruising at one stage after the 10 overs with two set batsmen at the crease and needing 78 runs off the last 10 overs. In the next fiver overs, CSK just scored 20 runs and lost the wickets of Ambati Rayudu and Shane Watson.
Fleming said that Kolkata hung in there for a much longer duration and they just couldn’t accelerate and was disappointed that CSK let it slip.
Asked about the reason for sending Kedar Jadhav ahead of Dwayne Bravo since hard-hitters play an important role in the back-end of the innings, Fleming said that with so many resources in their middle-order, one or the other batsman will come later in the order.
“Kedar’s a late middle to late batter for India. We could have gone a lot of different ways (with the batting order). Today Kedar had [played] some balls, it didn’t work out. We were hoping that Kedar could play the off-spinner well and dominate that area, with Jadeja at the other end but too much work to do and we got left short.”Stephen Fleming, Coach, CSK
Kedar Jadhav came into bat in the 17th over and wasn’t able to time the ball. He ended up with 7 runs off 12 balls.
Asked about the combination and if they can play an extra batsman after Bravo has started bowling four overs, Fleming said that they have enough and more batting resources already and with six bowlers and Sam Curran and Shardul Thakur bowling well, it gives the side more balance. As Bravo bowled four overs, Jadeja didn’t get a single over to bowl.
Asked about that decision, Fleming said that it would be a question more for MS, but he said that the decision might have been taken considering the left-handers in the KKR line-up and with the wind in a certain direction.
But, Fleming was pleased with Karn Sharma’s performance, who was playing his first game. He said that it’s never easy when you make changes, but Karn was waiting for an opportunity. After being unlucky in his first over, he worked hard and got them back into the game. Fleming hoped that he can build on this from here and with Piyush Chawla and Jadeja, they can operate with more spin as the pitches dry up.
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