The penultimate over of the game had turned the table as the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) smashed 25 runs off Shivam Dube to win by six wickets against CSK. And, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming said that spinners didn’t bowl because of dew, adding that they lost on that one over. With 12 balls left, and 34 runs were required, Dube came to bowl. Comparing the dew tonight to the “Niagara Falls”, Fleming added that the spinners would have struggled to grip the ball at that time as well.
“If you’d looked earlier on, spinning options were taken out of play. Because it was like Niagara Falls in terms of the wetness and they [LSG] played well. So it was very hard to, one, grip the ball for a spinner and, two, to be effective. So early on, we were one over short but they played well. We always knew we had to pick up an over somewhere – we were hoping to be able to create enough of a run-rate towards the end that we could squeeze someone in.
“Whether that was another spinner, the decision was made in the middle to use Dube, and they counted it well. So we always knew that one over was going to be pivotal and I think they did as well, but they played it very well,” he said at the post-match press conference.
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Ayush Badoni started the over with a six and Evin Lewis (55* off 23) finished with two boundaries and another maximum as well. Choudhary (0 for 39), bowling the final over, had 9 runs in the bank, which Badoni (19* off 9) brought with three balls to spare. But Fleming praised youngstersTushar Deshpande and Choudhary, the two new-ball bowlers as well.
“We’ve got some young guys – playing Mukesh for the first time, Deshpande has played a little bit before. But I thought it was really honest. It’s really tough out there – you can’t appreciate how wet that ball is and the outfield is. So it’s very difficult to get any aggressive play, I think we were bowling defensively from about 10 overs onwards. I thought they hung in really well, started really well in tough conditions,” Stephen Fleming explained.
“Adam Milne has had some treatment, he’s hopefully not too far away. Chris Jordan, also, hopefully not too far away, and of course Deepak Chahar. So we are a bit of resource down with our fast bowling, but at some stage, all teams will find they are a little bit skinny in some areas,” the CSK head coach again added.
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Earlier in the game, Robin Uthappa (50 off 27) got off to a flying start, before Shivam Dube (49 off 30) and MS Dhoni (16* off 6) delivered the final touch as well. Stephen Fleming has also admitted that 210 was just “about par”. However, CSK will next take on Punjab Kings (PBKS) at the same venue on Sunday
“We thought it was about par, and that’s the nature of the conditions at the moment – they very much favour the team batting second. We did well to get to 210, but we were always realistic that it was going to get harder as the night went on. So we worked very hard to stay in the game, to be honest. Defensively, I thought we were great. After about 10 overs, we just knuckled down and I thought we were fantastic to stay in the game. But it’s pretty hard fielding second at the moment,” Stephen Fleming concluded.
