{"id":18765,"date":"2020-11-02T11:36:40","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T06:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=68027"},"modified":"2020-11-02T11:36:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T06:06:40","slug":"ipl-2020-stephen-fleming-imagines-rebuilding-chennai-super-kings-will-be-of-great-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/cricket\/ipl\/ipl-2020-stephen-fleming-imagines-rebuilding-chennai-super-kings-will-be-of-great-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"IPL 2020: Stephen Fleming imagines rebuilding Chennai Super Kings will be of \u201cgreat fun\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have had an unforgettable and worst season of all time. The franchise failed to qualify for the playoffs, for the first time in the history of IPL. When Chennai Super Kings (CSK) lost its balance in the first of the IPL 2020 season, Stephen Fleming was seen frustrated. After the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) lost to Mumbai Indians (MI) with 5 wickets in powerplay, Stephen Fleming said that the team had \u201crun out of juice\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephen Fleming has examined the rebuilding of Melbourne Stars in the BBL and also the building of Rising Pune Supergiant in the IPL, but would the impending transition at\u00a0 Chennai Super Kings (CSK) be his toughest challenge as a T20 coach?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great challenge,\u201d<\/strong> Stephen Fleming said at the post-match press conference after the Super Kings finished their season with three successive wins. \u201cIt\u2019s great fun and there\u2019s responsibility around it, but when you get the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad come through and some of the players getting the mix of youth and old\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephen looked back at the plans for the future with a hope to establish a strong core like how the team management had done in 2008. MS Dhoni, who was one of the most expensive player in the IPL inaugural action, has also confirmed that he\u2019s not retiring before the next IPL.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go back to the same team which Mr. Srinivasan and CSK picked and how right they got it,\u201d<\/strong> said Stephen Fleming. \u201cWe\u2019re looking to do the same if we can get a decade of consistent cricket from a side, you\u2019re doing something right. So, we\u2019re tapping into that and yeah there\u2019s big responsibility. Teams now and squads are a lot smarter and they really want what they want, so talent is at a premium. But, it\u2019s one of the challenges\u2026 good and exciting challenges of being involved with an IPL side.\u201d<\/strong> He added.<\/p>\n

The 23-year old Ruturaj Gaikwad, who scored three fifties in a row, is a \u201cmajor applicant\u201d<\/strong> for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) going forward. When asked if the team management could\u2019ve found room for him at the top in the first half of the season, Fleming considered that they had actually rushed him into action too early after he had recovered from Covid-19.<\/p>\n

After an extended quarantine period, Ruturaj Gaikwad returned to the training on September 21. The very next day, he made his IPL debut against Rajasthan Royals and bagged a duck at No.5. After three days, against the Delhi Capitals, he managed 5 at No. 4 before being dropped from the XI.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, we couldn\u2019t play him earlier, in fact we played him too early,\u201d <\/strong>Stephen Fleming said. \u201cCovid really knocked him around, we knew how good he was from the time we\u2019ve had in the last two years; the pre-season [camp] in Chennai was outstanding. One of the disappointments was obviously he got sick and the fact that it hung around for so long, people underestimated what it does to a player physically and mentally\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to get him into the game really early on, looking back probably it was too soon, so it wasn\u2019t effective. We might have pushed him in too quickly and he wasn\u2019t quite ready physically and he got outweighed a little bit \u2013 some doubts were cast and just got to work with him in net practice and limited practice matches, but we always had in mind he was going to be a key player.\u201d<\/strong> Added Stephen Fleming.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It was Imran Tahir<\/span> and Lungi Ngidi who had set up the Chennai Super Kings\u2019 (CSK) nine-wicket win by restricting Kings XI Punjab to 153 for 6, On Sunday. Imran Tahir, who was the top wicket-taker last season, got only three games in IPL 2020 for one wicket. Stephen Fleming explained that since the batting line-up was fragile due to the absence of Suresh Raina, the team needed an overseas cover on that front and had to rely on the Indian bowlers to do the job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe had Josh Hazlewood also in limited games, but what we were in trouble is that we were without our Indian batters, we had to fill those gaps with international players,\u201d<\/strong> said Stephen Fleming. \u201cWhilst you\u2019d like to play all your internationals, you having to fill a gap at the top of the order [means] it puts a squeeze somewhere else\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we had to rely on Indian seamers and only one sort of overseas bowler at a time. It wasn\u2019t like we didn\u2019t want to play them. When you have one of the best T20 bowlers in the world sitting on the sidelines, it hurts me just as much as some of the experts saying why is he not playing. But, they have to think deeper than that as to what\u2019s going on with the balance of the side and that\u2019s one of the great challenges of selecting each side when you\u2019ve got so much talent on the bench.\u201d<\/strong> added Stephen Fleming.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hung tough as a group,\u201d<\/strong> he said. \u201cObviously in the bubble we spent a lot of time together and when things aren\u2019t going well in the IPL, it can get a bit toxic. But the players \u2013 every one of them \u2013 were incredibly committed to what we were trying to do. Some were getting opportunities and some weren\u2019t which again is the nature of the IPL. [That] we were finishing on an up is a testament to the players more than anything that they were still committed to respecting the jersey and franchise and finished the tournament well so that we can look back and say \u2018what if\u2019 rather than \u2018what next\u2019. We\u2019ve got too many fans as well relying on us to do well and we have an obligation to do that. The players were in a good enough space and tough to repay that\u201d,<\/strong> He said.<\/p>\n

Stephen Fleming was also delighted with how the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) rejuvenated themselves after the terrible start, adding hopes for future.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) coach Stephen Fleming believes rebuilding the team would be \u2018great fun\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":39481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[320,69,793,812],"class_list":["post-18765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ipl","tag-chennai-super-kings","tag-ms-dhoni","tag-ruturaj-gaikwad","tag-stephen-fleming"],"reading_time":"6 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}