Head coach Stephen Fleming said Chennai Super Kings are “realistic” about their position in this year’s Indian Premier League (IPL), but asserted that the five-time champion will leave no stone unturned to find players for the next year.
An out-of-sorts CSK suffered its sixth loss in eight matches after Mumbai Indians handed it a nine-wicket hammering here on Sunday to keep the MS Dhoni-led side confined to the bottom of the points table.
CSK fought its way to 176/5 but it was not enough on a batting-friendly surface on which Rohit Sharma (76 not out) and Suryakumar Yadav (68 not out) put the visiting bowlers to the sword.
“It is hard when you are playing below par to get enthusiastic about staying in the competition, but that is what we must do,” Fleming told the media.
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Fleming said CSK think-tank will look to learn from such experiences from the past to turn around its fortunes. Fleming might have had in mind the turnaround his team effected in 2023 when it lifted the title after finishing ninth in 2022.
“Nothing will be wasted during this tournament, we will look back at other tournaments that have not gone our way and some of the work we have done at the back end of the tournaments that set us up for wins the following year,” he said.
“We’re realistic about the position that we’re in, but there will be no stone unturned looking for players for next year, combinations for next year and we’ll see it as an opportunity,” he added.
Fleming continued, “(It is) not a great opportunity because we want to be at the pointy end of the competition but if it works out that there is no chance of us getting through (to the playoffs), we’ll certainly make the most of it.”
MI batters showed the way by scoring 177 for one in 15.4 overs at a brisk rate, which was in complete contrast to CSK’s conservative approach for a large part of its innings. Fleming attributed it to “lacking confidence”.
“We’re not trying to play a conservative brand of cricket, we’re just lacking a little bit of confidence and we’re just changing personnel through one reason or another,” he said.
CSK found its first boundary at the end of the third over while batting first and it was due to debutant Ayush Mhatre’s aggressive 15-ball 32 that it was able to reach 48/1 in the power play.
But Mhatre’s heroics notwithstanding, CSK went into its shell when pressure was applied even as Ravindra Jadeja (53 not out) and Shivam Dube (50) put on 79 runs for the fourth wicket.
“They did feel that the ball was stopping which made it difficult, but we need to be more proactive all the way through,” Fleming said about Jadeja and Dube’s stand.
“We’re just trying to find a tempo that’s going to help us compete and at the moment, we might get it right in one area, but other areas are letting us down. We’re plugging holes in one spot, but it’s still leaking in others and that can often be the case when you’re just a little bit down on fortune.”
Fleming continued, “But we’ll just keep plugging away trying to get it right and if not, as I said, we’ll turn our attention to unearthing players and trying to free out for the rest of the season.”