Not often do you see former New Zealand captain and current Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming lose his cool but such has been the year 2020 and CSK’s performance in this IPL so far that all it needed was a question on Kedar Jadhav’s batting order for Fleming to lose his composer, albeit for a brief period of time.
The CSK head coach seemed bemused and annoyed at those questioning the thought process behind sending Kedar Jadhav ahead of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in their Indian Premier League match against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
CSK lost by seven runs to the David Warner-led side on Friday for their third straight defeat in the ongoing edition of the lucrative league.
“Really? It is a question?” a fuming Fleming asked at the post-match press conference.
“He (Jadhav) is our number four, Dhoni, primarily, is a middle to backend player, Kedar Jadhav is our number four, he plays a dual role, if we get off to a good start he might move down and let Dhoni up.
“If you lose early wickets then your number four batsman goes in.”
Jadhav faced 10 balls for his three runs. The right-handed middle-order batsman has been struggling to hit the boundaries in this IPL. He did get set against RR and DC but failed to hit the big shots when it mattered the most.
Fleming, however, admitted that both Jadhav and Shane Watson will be under pressure to produce the goods for CSK.
“Both Watson and Jadhav are looking for substantial contributions. Shane can light the fuse at any stage and with Kedhar, it is the same.”
After Jadhav’s dismissal, Dhoni and Jadeja took some time to steady the innings before going for the big shots in CSK’s chase. Fleming said the experienced pair had to take time.
“We were in trouble through the middle (part of the innings) and MS (Dhoni) and Jaddu had to take time. They got us pretty close but they probably would want to be a little bit more productive in the middle.
“Obviously, when you have to deal with Rashid Khan’s overs, it is a great challenge as well. Jaddu’s momentum towards the end was encouraging,” he added.
“It’s just our fourth game so it’s pretty early in our cycle of form, but there is no doubt there is pressure and they will be feeling it more than what I am talking about.”
He also said CSK were patchy with what they were doing, adding in the last four overs SRH were very good.
“The last four overs in particular, they were very good and we were patchy. And we just lacked a little bit of confidence in the field. “So there’s little things all around, there’s probably a dozen runs at least that we gave up just with the overthrows or bad movement. In a tight competition, that’s going to cost us and we know that.
“We’ve just got to get it right, got to get a bit of confidence and a bit of game rhythm and guys in form – and that can change pretty quickly. But also, if you don’t address them, then we’ll just slide away,” Fleming added.
(With PTI inputs)
Source: IPLT20.com