Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming compared the dew to Niagara Falls during his team’s IPL match against Lucknow Super Giants, justifying his move to bowl the 19th over of the match to Shivam Dube at the expense of the spinners.
With LSG needing 34 off 12 balls, the man of the match pair of Evin Lewis and Ayush Badoni dismissed Dube for 25, taking the equation to nine from the final over at the Brabourne Stadium.
For the first time ever, LSG dropped the runs needed to win their maiden IPL match with three balls to spare on Thursday night.
“If you had seen earlier, the option of spinning would have been taken out of the game because it was like Niagara Falls in terms of wetness and they (LSG) played well,” Fleming said in a virtual press conference after the match.
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“So one, it was very difficult for the spinner to catch the ball and second, to be effective. So early on, we were one over short but he played well.
“We always knew we had to bowl an over somewhere – we were hoping to be able to get a high run-rate at the end that we could squeeze someone.”
Captain Ravindra Jadej’s two overs went for 21 runs while Moeen Ali conceded 14 runs in his one over, forcing CSK to rely on Dubey’s medium pace bowling.
“Be it another spinner, the decision to use Dubey was taken midway, and he counted it well.
“So we always knew that an over was going to be important and I think he did the same, but he played it really well,” Fleming said.
The pair of KL Rahul (40) and Quinton de Kock (61) laid a solid foundation for LSG with a target of 211 runs adding 99 runs in 10 overs.
The head coach reiterated that he had to go on the defensive after the 10th over due to heavy dew.
Fleming, however, praised young Tushar Deshpande and two new-ball bowlers, Mukesh Chaudhary.
“We have some young players – Deshpande playing the role of Mukesh for the first time a while back. But I thought it was really honest. It’s really tough, you can’t appreciate how wet and outfield the ball is.
“So it is very difficult to get any offensive play, I think we were bowling defensively for about 10 overs. I thought he did really well, started really well in tough conditions,” Fleming , who played for CSK in the inaugural season, said.
The Super Kings were also done due to the unavailability of their three key bowlers in Deepak Chahar, Chris Jordan and Adam Milne.
“Adam Milne has had some treatment, hopefully not too far. Chris Jordan, too, hopefully not too far, and of course Deepak Chahar.
“So we are a little resourceful with our fast bowling, but at some stage, all teams will find that they are a little thin in some areas,” Fleming said.
He believed the total for the course was 210 par, but said that the second fielding is more difficult with conditions favorable to the batsmen.
“We thought it was par, and that’s the nature of the conditions at the moment – they favor the team batting second. We did well to get to 210, but we were always realistic that as the night went on, It will get difficult.
“So we honestly worked very hard to stay in the game. Defensively, I thought we were great. After about 10 overs, we knelt down and I thought we would stay in the game. But it is very difficult to field second at the moment,” commented Fleming.
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