The head coach of Chennai Super Kings, Stephen Fleming, backed his team’s captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad, who has been facing a poor run in the ongoing Indian Premier League. With 63 runs in five innings, Gaikwad has the lowest score, average (12.60), and strike rate (105) among openers who have batted at least thrice this season as well.

“He’s going fine,” Fleming said ahead of CSK’s encounter against Sunrisers Hyderabad. “He hasn’t had the returns that he would like, and he’s working hard on that. But that can be the nature of T20. He’s training well, he’s hitting the ball well, he has a positive mindset, he just hasn’t got away yet.

“But we’ve seen over the years that he’s a quality player,” he again added. “And if we can cover for him for a few games and he comes into form, then that’s the way an IPL can go. Very rarely someone dominates the whole way through, but if we have players coming in and out of form and they dovetail, then that’s a good thing. But he’s working hard and he’s got a lot of support around him.”

However, the upcoming clash at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium could offer that opportunity for Gaikwad to find that form. On a surface that has usually seen high-scoring games, against a fairly inexperienced bowling attack, the opportunity is great for him as well.

Meanwhile, it’s a venue where Sanju Samson has also smashed 593 runs across 13 innings, at a strike rate of 164.26. Apart from him, Ayush Mhatre can also have a couple of good knocks coming into the match as well.

“We talk about everything, so we’re always looking at different ways. You get to back your captain to the hilt, and Rutu’s form will come good. He’s too good a player not to contribute in this line-up,” Fleming said.

“The two wins were much needed. We talked about getting a bit of confidence and some evidence. We were a new group getting together, so we were desperate to get the first win. So to get two in a row is great. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do, we know that, and this is a tough fixture for us. We’ve had some tough battles and tough games here in the last few years, so we know we’re going to have to be at our best again,” Stephen Fleming concluded.