Former New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris named his former skipper and current Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming as the best captain he’s come across. Fleming has been in the news for being a bit grumpy in the press conferences mainly due to the hard-hitting questions directed towards him after CSK’s disappointing performances in the IPL 2020 so far. Styris, who has played a lot of cricket with Fleming, said the focus should be on why he has lost his cool so often this year.
“Stephen Fleming is the best captain I’ve come across. And he coaches the way he captained,” Styris said on Star Sports. “It’s happened a lot (in the past too). But I think we got to focus on why he was grumpy. He talked about the processes, he wasn’t happy with it, those are the little things you can control whether you win or lose.”
Reacting on the same, legendary Brian Lara said Fleming just wants to get the best out of CSK players. “He will be a little animated. He wants to get the best out of his players. He can’t do it himself,” Lara said.
CSK suffered their fourth loss of IPL 2020 when they beaten by 10 runs by Kolkata Knight Riders. Their decision to send Kedar Jadhav ahead of Ravindra Jadeja when the required rate was still manageable was questioned.
“At the time, we thought that Kedar could play the spinner well and dominate, while Jadeja was there to come and finish. But in the end, there was too much work to do and we fell short,” Fleming said at the press-match conference.
Fleming rued that their batsmen let it “slip” despite having so many resources. The team added just 14 runs from 11-14 overs, a period when they lost both Shane Watson and an in-form Ambati Rayudu.
“If we could have got one of those players to 75-plus and continued that partnership for another maybe four or five overs, the game might have been a lot different. “Kolkata hung in there long enough to put pressure on us and we just couldn’t accelerate. We feel disappointed that we let it slip,” he said.
The absence of Suresh Raina, who pulled out of IPL for personal reasons, was once again felt sorely in the middle but Fleming said they have a well-balanced side.
“But the performances like today, with the experience we have got, we should have put it away. We have got a lot of batsmen anyway so the balance is very good with the six bowlers. I don’t think an extra batsman is going to help.” Dinesh Karthik’s ploy to hold his ace spinner Sunil Narine for the back-end of the innings paid dividends as he dismissed his ‘bunny’ Watson for ninth time in T20s,” the coach added.
“Ideally, you have one or two players bat through…Today with (Sunil) Narine holding overs back, it made it very difficult in the back-end.”
Source: IPLT20.com