NEWS
Follow UsYesterday, on May 1, when Punjab Kings (PBKS) defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) at Chepauk by seven wickets, it was PBKS’s fourth win against them at CSK’s home ground.
Bowling first, Punjab strangled the CSK batters after the powerplay as they could score only 107 runs in 14 overs at a run rate of 7.6, which clearly wasn’t enough. Punjab cantered to the total with 13 deliveries remaining, courtesy of Jonny Bairstow’s 46(30) and Rilee Rossouw’s 43(23).
CSK’s bowling looked out of sorts, with Deepak Chahar injuring himself right after his second delivery and the two Sri Lankans travelling to Colombo to get their visa issues sorted for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies.
Head Coach Stephen Fleming painted a grave picture of CSK’s depleted bowling resources.
“Travel log is very busy. There are a lot of ins and outs. So Deepak Chahar doesn’t look good. My initial feeling wasn’t great. I’m hoping for a more positive report when we talk to the physio and have a look,” Fleming said on Chahar.
“The Sri Lankan boys [Matheesha Pathirana and Maheesh Theekshana] are off for their visa. Hoping that their process is smooth and we get them back for the game up north. [Richard] Gleeson was good. Was positive. Losing Fizz was disappointing. There’s all happening, you know. Tushar has a bit of a flu going around as well, so we lost him to the flu today and had to make a few changes, which is unusual, but again, that’s part of it…”
Fleming was positive about the replacements, but the lack of game time for players on the bench is also a concern for him.
“…we have got resources. Just that they haven’t got game time so that they can be really comfortable with their roles and the game plan, which we are struggling with a little,” Fleming added.
If CSK’s bowling looked depleted yesterday, their batting order looked out of sorts, with Shivam Dube being promoted to three, Ravindra Jadeja at four, and Daryl Mitchell batting at number eight in the batting order.
None of these forced or deliberate changes worked on the day for the team in yellow, and Fleming was quite honest in his assessment of their bowling and batting approach, which he called “muddled” in the press conference.
Talking about these batting order changes, Fleming stressed how maintaining a fixed entry point for Dube is one of the main reasons for such a change.
“…So if you get to six overs, that’s the perfect time for him to come in. The next thing is with left-right [batting pair]. We want Jadeja, who has a positive role as well, to come and take them on. But they bowled well.”
“The [Sameer] Rizvi one [batting change], we will discuss a little bit more, may go the other way around with that one, but again, he’s positive, and his ability to hit sixes in training has certainly been good. But there’s also a temperament part of that that young players need to learn. So we have got a bit of information from that.”
“The casualty was Mitchell going down the order. What we learnt from the first part of the tournament was that if it goes too low, other players, [like] Moeen Ali and MS [Dhoni], can push the game along. So the window closed there, but it was very much getting the tactics right for what we wanted to do in the middle. And that was to break their spinners up, but they won that competition.”
CSK are currently fourth on the points table with five losses and five wins after 10 games. They will play their next game against Punjab at Dharamshala on May 5.
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