We're finding ourselves behind in the powerplay: Stephen Fleming

Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming rued his side’s poor batting in the powerplay this season as Mumbai Indians thrashed the defending champions by six wickets to storm into their fourth IPL final. The Super Kings once again started poorly with the bat and Mumbai Indians made them pay a hefty price. The reigning IPL champions just could not find their groove at the Chepauk after opting to bat first.

Their top-order failed to deliver once again with the likes of Faf du Plessis, Suresh Raina and Shane Watson back in the hut even before the end of the powerplay. After six overs, CSK were precariously placed at 32 for 3. The MS Dhoni-led side lost just one wicket in the remaining 14 overs but could not quite accelerate and ended up on a modest 131 for 4.

In reply, Mumbai Indians lost their skipper, Rohit Sharma, and Quinton de Kock cheaply. However, Suryakumar Yadav scored a fine unbeaten fifty to take his side home with nine balls to spare.

Following the game, Stephen Fleming reckoned the team needed to pace the innings better during the powerplay overs. He felt that while the team is doing fine in the last 14 overs, the top-order is just not managing to do the task in the first six. In the ongoing season, Super Kings have lost 29 wickets – most by any team – in the powerplay.

“Yeah it [pacing the innings] is tough. There’s the problem we’re finding – we’re so far behind in the powerplays. We’re doing things right from overs 6 to 20, the run rate today I think was 7 and [then] 10 [in the last six overs]. We’re getting the right runs there, [but] we are just finding ourselves behind in the powerplays,” said Fleming in the post-match presser.

Fleming supports misfiring players

The likes of Shane Watson, Ambati Rayudu and some other senior batsmen have not delivered as per expectations this season. However, Stephen Fleming did not criticise them and threw his support behind the misfiring players. He also explained the reason behind sticking with the same set of batsmen throughout the season.

“You’ve just got to back them. Two or three games out from the end of the season, we’re making decisions on players to get us through to the end. And we just back players because they’re proven performers, doing all the right things, but it is just not working. This can be a cruel game, especially when you’re playing in conditions like this for over half the season.

“So we make quite balanced decisions or have quite robust discussions around it. And this year we’ve just backed the players we’ve got and will continue to do so,” the former Kiwi cricketer signed off. CSK will face the winner of the DC-SRH match on Friday in the qualifier 2.

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