The head coach of the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Stephen Fleming believes the pitch in Dubai for the clash versus the Delhi Capitals was difficult for batting. He also had MS Dhoni’s backing, by adding that Dhoni was not the only one who struggled to bat in tough circumstances. In the matchup, Dhoni produced 18 off 27 balls with a strike rate of 66.67 before being removed by Avesh Khan in the last over.
Following Robin Uthappa’s wicket, the CSK captain entered to bat in the 9th over, but he never got momentum. He could not really identify the line even once throughout his time in the middle. The Super Kings started their innings with a 16-run over from bowler Anrich Nortje but lost its charm after that. Fleming stated that the Yellow Army missed the mark of what they would have hoped to get.
“Well, he [Dhoni] wasn’t the only one who struggled. It was a difficult day for strokeplay. When 137 [136] is almost enough, I think it was a tough wicket to score big on in terms of the big shots. So, both teams struggled with that towards the end of the innings”.
“Sometimes you set your sights too high, [want] too many, and probably we were only 10-15 runs short of having a match-winning score,” Fleming said after the match.
DC attack bowled very well in the last five overs: Fleming
Fleming said that evaluating the conditions at the three sites during the second leg of IPL 2021 has been difficult. Furthermore, he had words of compliments for the Capitals’ bowling for hitting the right procedure and not permitting the CSK batsmen to back away with the game.
“So, the difficulty at the moment is to assess what the conditions are in all three different grounds and, batting first, getting a score that is par or just above. It was no lack of intent; it was just we had to stabilize after a couple of mistakes and then we were reasonably well-placed for 150. The other thing was their attack bowled very well in the last five overs,” he added.
On October 4, DC defeated the Super Kings by 3 wickets to take the top spot in the points standings. Meanwhile, CSK has dropped to 2nd place following back-to-back setbacks.
