CSK head coach Stephen Fleming has said that the team isn’t surprised by what former captain MS Dhoni has done with the bat this season so far. However, Dhoni has repeatedly entertained the crowd with some great cameos this year and has a tournament strike rate over 255 as well. Notably, on Friday (April 19), Dhoni smashed an unbeaten 28 off just 9 balls against Lucknow Super Giants. However, Fleming revealed that MS Dhoni’s recovery from his knee injury has restricted the amount of time he spends in the middle as well.
“It’s inspirational, isn’t it,” Fleming said of Dhoni’s performances at 42. “His batting this year even in training has been very crisp. The team isn’t surprised with what he is doing because his skill level during the pre season was very high. Other years he has obviously had problems with his knee and he is sort of recovering from that which is why there is only a certain amount of balls he can function well.”
“I think everyone wants to see him for longer as we do but that amount of time is about right. We need him for the tournament and that 2-3 over cameo he is owning that space. It’s up to the rest of the batting unit to get us to a good position where he can push us over the top. He is doing that pretty much every time at the moment which is great to watch,” he again shared.
While applauding Dhoni, Fleming also stated that Dhoni is still the heartbeat of CSK.
“What an amazing atmosphere when he comes out and does play and entertain, it’s exhilarating,” he added. “We are incredibly proud of what he has achieved. We marvel at the amount of love that he gets. It’s no surprise with what he has done with Indian cricket and with CSK with us. We are incredibly proud that he is a part of our side and is pretty much the heartbeat of the side. We thoroughly enjoy it. We know we are beneficiaries of the career that he has had and is having. We enjoy every minute of it.”
However, Stephen Fleming also credited LSG’s openers for their stunning partnership that helped them chase down the total with ease. While Quinton de Kock made 54, KL Rahul scored 82 off just 53 balls as well.
“It was a tough game,” Fleming added. “We certainly struggled to get any momentum throughout the game. To win that match, we would have had to do something similar to what they did which is to take wickets throughout but the opening stand was a match winning one. And we couldn’t create the pressure because they are used to the pace of the pitch and if we got wickets throughout we could have put pressure on their order here.”
He again shared, “Sometimes the spinners are taken out of play when a partnership is developing and going well. With a left-hander and right-hander, the feeling was that with the players that were in, spin was going to be easy to hit, we saw that with the last couple of overs with Moeen Ali. The idea was to get more spin but they just nullified that so we had to keep changing to try and find a way to get a wicket.”
“The sample is still relatively small. We are only getting to halfway through the tournament, what I would expect to see is with the hot conditions and the wickets being used, the scoring should slow a little bit. Today was a good contest between bat and ball, it was a good even contest. I think people enjoy seeing a lot of fours and sixes but there is also that warning that is becoming a bit one-sided, I agree with that and that’s why I enjoy a tussle like that where there is a little bit in it for both,” Stephen Fleming concluded.
