Fleming defends CSK players after KKR loss

Kolkata, May 4: Defending his players after the loss to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in an Indian Premier League (IPL) game here, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming said the team has performed well so far and changes are not required after just one bad game.

Poor fielding and bowling let CSK down against KKR at the Eden Gardens here on Thursday night.

Ravindra Jadeja, regarded as one of the best fielders around, dropped KKR opener Sunil Narine twice on six, off successive deliveries by pacer K.M. Asif.

Narine was adjudged Man-of-the-Match for his all-round show — 32 runs and 2/20 — as KKR secured a six-wicket victory with 14 balls to spare. They moved to the third spot in the points table while CSK dropped to second.

“We were exposed and I think sometimes it reflected on the bowling. Certainly we were on the backfoot with some good fielders making mistakes, it hit down a little bit,” Fleming said at the post match press conference while referring to Jadeja’s gaffes.

“Look, that can happen in a long tournament… It’s not a great performance by any means but we have got hours rather than days to rectify. A loss just is a little slap on the face and hopefully it has not affected in day and half’s time and there’s still going to be hardwork.

“We got to be careful that we don’t get too carried away after one bad game where the bowling looked a little bit off. It’s too easy to start chopping and changing after one bad game. Look those guys bowled us to a win in the last game. You just got be careful and not be too knee-jerk and make sure that you run the sequence long enough to see true form come through,” the former New Zealand skipper added.

Fleming also asserted that CSK had set a competitive target for the hosts by posting 177/5 after being asked to bat.

“We were not that unhappy with 178, that’s a pretty competitive target. We just did not start well enough, we had opportunities but could not take them,” he said.

Apart from his mistakes in the field, Jadeja — who is going through a slump in form — was also lacklustre with both the bat and ball. He scored 12 runs from as many balls and returned figures of 1/39. IANS