Chennai Super Kings (CSK) Stephen Fleming lost his cool at a journalist, following his side’s loss to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on Friday. Fleming went back and forth at the journalist who compared CSK’s brand of cricket to the other teams. The former New Zealand, captain, however, was not in a jovial mood as he slammed the journalist for his “silly” question. CSK suffered its first loss of the season, going down against RCB, who won at the Chepauk for the first time after 2008, by 50 runs.
During a post-match press conference, Fleming took his frustration out on the journalist, who was critical of CSK’s brand of cricket.
Reporter: “In the first game, you chased 156 in almost 20 overs. Today, you scored 146. I know this is your way of playing cricket, but do you think it’s kind of getting outdated?”
Fleming: “What do you mean by my way of playing? You talk about firepower. We have got firepower all the way through. I don’t understand this question. Just because we don’t swing from ball No.1 and have some luck go our way, just see at the end, who wins it. It is a positive brand of cricket. Don’t discount us.”
Reporter: “I am not discounting you.”
Fleming: “You sort of are. Silly question.”
Speaking of “home advantage”, Fleming insisted there isn’t any as his team has failed to read the pitch more often than not.
“Well, as we’ve been telling you for a number of years, there was no home advantage at Chepauk. We’ve won away from home a couple of times. And we haven’t been able to read… we’ve been really honest with you,” said Fleming during the post-match press conference.
“We haven’t been able to read the wickets here in the last couple of years. So, it’s not new. We are trying to come to grips each day with what we get, and we don’t know. It’s not the Chepauk [of old] where you can just go in and play four spinners. We’re having to work really hard to try and understand what the nature of each pitch is, and it’s quite different,” he added.
Meanwhile, CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad expressed that 170 runs was a “par total” on the Chepauk surface and dropped catches, some extra boundaries costed them the game.
“To be honest, I still feel 170 was a par score on this wicket. It was not that great to bat. It was a bad day in the fielding; it cost us really badly. At the end of the day, when you are chasing 170, you bat differently. You have little bit time when you go in to bat. When you are chasing 20 runs extra on a wicket where you know it is going to be a little bit sticky and it is going to stop after the ball gets old, you have to bat slightly differently in the powerplay. It got a little bit slower and sticky. The new ball was sticking a lot until the five overs, do not really know how it happened,” said Gaikwad.
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