Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming said that Rajasthan Royals played a great home game against them on Thursday as they won the match by 32 runs.
RR had won the toss and opted to bat first on the night and scored 202 runs on the back of Yashasvi Jaiswal’s 77 and some late cameos from Dhruv Jurel and Devdutt Padikkal.
The CSK innings never got going from the start, with the RR spinners keeping a check on the scoring rate. Shivam Dube’s 52 went in vain in the end as RR went to the top of the table.
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Fleming said that RR played a great home game and also praised Jaiswal for his knock on the day. The CSK head coach felt that his team was a bit unlucky in the backend of the RR innings as he felt they conceded 16-20 runs more and a score of 185 would have been fitting.
“I thought it was a good game. Rajasthan Royals played really well. We don’t like to preconceive too many ideas about how the pitch will play. This pitch was a lot different in appearance than the last one and it played well. It started to get a bit slower towards the end. Rajasthan played a great home game and got out of the blocks very well. Jaiswal played a great innings to create some momentum.”
“We came back quite nicely in the game. We thought we were a bit unlucky in the last 3-4 overs, with nicks here and there. Probably 16-20 runs more than we thought. 185 was more fitting. But competitive score to chase,” said Fleming
Fleming also said that the set roles are important for CSK and they don’t like to deviate from the things that are working for them. The CSK head coach said that they couldn’t get any real momentum during the powerplay overs.
Fleming felt that they were outplayed by RR and praised them for being outstanding with both bat and ball.
“The set roles are really important. Rahane has been great for us at No.3. We don’t mess with things that are going well. We came up against a team that took the pace off the ball, so we couldn’t get any real momentum in the first 6 overs. Conway, who is in outstanding form as well, couldn’t get underway.”
“The rhythm of the innings was slow to get going. When we tried to catch the game up, we made mistakes and that’s just pressure and good bowling. We did well with Dube to create a bit of forward momentum and gave ourselves a small sniff. It was just always a few overs too far. In games like that, we were just outplayed. The first 6 overs, they were outstanding with the bat, and outstanding with the ball as well. So that really set the two innings up for them,” said Fleming.
