Chennai Super Kings have had a nightmare of a season as they did not qualify for the playoffs for the first time in IPL history. Towards the business end of the tournament, the team picked up the pace and won a few games but they were too late. Ruturaj Gaikwad was one of the most impressive players but there were questions to why he wasn’t brought to the playing side early on.
Head coach Stephen Fleming believes that this draft was not delayed, whereas he was drafted into the side too early even after recovering from COVID-19.
“We couldn’t have played him earlier. In fact, we played him too early. Covid really knocked him around. We knew how good he was from the time we’ve had in the last two years and the pre-season in Chennai was outstanding. One of the disappointments was that he got sick, and the fact that it hung around for so long… people underestimate what it does to a player physically and mentally,” Fleming said.
Apart from Gaikwad, Imran Tahir who is a star bowler for the side sat out for most of the tournament. Fleming clarified that he did that to bring balance to the side.
“We had Josh Hazlewood also who played limited games. Where we were in trouble is that without our Indian batters, we had to fill those gaps with international players. Obviously, you’d like to play all your international players, but when you’re having to fill a gap at the top of the order, it puts a squeeze somewhere else. We had to rely on our Indian seamers and only one sort of overseas bowler at a time.”
