CSK head coach Stephen Fleming has explained the management’s reason for sending Kedar Jadhav — to bat ahead of Ravindra Jadeja and Dwayne Bravo. In their match against KKR on Wednesday, the Knight Riders chose to bat first, winning the toss at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. Rahul Tripathi scored a stupendous knock of 81 runs off 51 balls to power KKR’s score to 167.
CSK’s could only make 157 runs from the 20 overs with contributions from Shane Watson (50) and Ambati Rayudu(30). The CSK management were questioned on their decision of sending Kedhar Jadhav ahead of Jadeja and Bravo. Jadhav only made seven runs off 12 balls and stayed unbeaten. KKR won the match by 10 runs.
Stephen Fleming explains the reason to send Kedhar Jadhav ahead of Bravo and Jadeja
CSK’s head coach said Kedar’s ability to play spin was the main reason he was sent above Jadeja. The plan was for Jadeja to come and finish, but the plan didn’t work at the end. Fleming said CSK have a lot of batting resources and so he always has the option to experiment with the batting order.
“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,” Stephen Fleming said at the press-match conference.
“We’ve got so much batting resources. Kedar is a late middle to late batter for India. We could have gone a whole lot of different ways. Today Kedar had some balls but that didn’t work out. You always put players in different areas and that’s just when you have so much batting talent to choose from. It’s one of the things we look at, but it’s all in hindsight,” he added.
We feel disappointed that we let it slip: Stephen Fleming on CSK’s loss to KKR
Fleming felt the story would’ve been different if one of the players could’ve got 75 plus runs. He stated Kolkata’s pressure stopped them from accelerating and he was disappointed that we let the match slip out of hands. Stephen Fleming mentioned with the experience their side hold they should’ve put the match to bed.
“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.” said Fleming.
“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,” he said.
Chennai Super Kings are now at the 5th spot in the IPL points table for now, with two wins in six games. They will next face Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Dubai International Stadium on October 10th.