Mumbai, April 1
Following their second successive loss in the Indian Premier League 2022 season, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) chief coach Stephen Fleming compared the conditions at the Brabourne Stadium to Niagra Falls in terms of the wetness of the outfield.
Defending champions CSK lost to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on Thursday, with the newcomers winning by six wickets, chasing down a score of 210 with three balls to spare. West Indies star Evin Lewis blazed to the fastest half-century of IPL 2022, as he took just 23 deliveries to score an unbeaten 55, which propelled LSG to victory.
Fleming vent his frustration in the post-match press conference, saying, dew had made the conditions really tough to bowl second.
"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 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," said Fleming.
"Whether that was another spinner, the decision was made in the middle to use (Shivam) 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."
The former New Zealand cricketer added that the conditions were so tough that CSK had no option but to bowl defensively.
"We've got some young guys -- playing Mukesh (Choudhary) for the first time, (Tushar) 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, and started really well in tough conditions."
Fleming felt the conditions in Maharashtra favour the team batting second.
"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."
