Pune, May 5 (IANS): Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming is not concerned by lack of runs coming from the bat of all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja in IPL 2022.
In Wednesday's match against Royal Challengers Bangalore at MCA Stadium, Jadeja was unable to get a big score, getting out for just three off Harshal Patel as Chennai lost by 13 runs.
"I am not concerned, a T20 game can be tough. When you are batting at five or six, you don't get a lot of time to get the tempo or rhythm right. We will look at it now and work out what the best order will be going forward, but no I am not concerned about his form," said Fleming in the post-match press conference.
Fleming rued the slide of wickets for Chennai in their chase of 174, pointing out that losing wickets at regular intervals didn't help their cause either. "It was a little bit slow and there was a little bit of turn. So, you have to win it with your top order, and you have to get a score of 70+ from one player and have a number of good partnerships. If we keep losing wickets throughout the innings, then it becomes very difficult.
"And, in both innings as well. We hung in there with the ball, and with the bat we just couldn't get any cameos across the line. To win that one, we should have done it maybe three down or four down."
It has been a season to forget for Chennai, who have just three wins out of ten games and are virtually out of contention for the playoffs. "I think we have been off in all departments. You don't have to be far off to get hurt in this competition, and the fielding as well, the catches we have dropped is of concern, so we are not far away, and a lot of games we were really close to winning them, and had it taken away or we were not good enough to get across the line, but it is usually the story of the competition," stated Fleming.
Fleming added that left-arm pacer Mukesh Choudhary has been developing well but conceded that Chennai hasn't got the required balance in the season due to injuries to Deepak Chahar and Adam Milne robbing them of experience in the pace bowling department.
"We just need a bit of experience, we lost Milne as well, and we had a couple of players who were in our players who we lost early on. So, we didn't have to look at bringing young players in probably a little ahead of their times. Mukesh Choudhary has developed well, Simarjeet is getting an opportunity here, but we have just been off in our balance, and in a competition as tight as this, that can be the difference."
Fleming signed off by saying that conditions were tailor made for the defending champions to do well but couldn't take advantage of it and ended up on the losing side yet again. "We have got some very good spin options, and we knew in the first half of the tournament, we knew we had to stay with the pack, and coming home, I knew we can do pretty well with the spin attack we have got. Today was disappointing, I thought the conditions were in our favour, but again we were not quite good enough."