JOIN US Stephen Fleming singled out AB de Villiers as the biggest threat to Chennai Super Kings’ final aspirations even as he put his wards through a mild practice session in the absence of skipper MS Dhoni here at the JSCA stadium.
The Super Kings’ coach felt that it was important for his bowlers execute their plans to perfection as the South African had the ability to take the game away from their grasp. “You can make as many plans as you like but he is such a good player, he is world’s best player and he will conquer most of those plans,” said the former Kiwi player.
“You got to hold your nerves, you have to have a bit of courage and you will have to be ready to take the opportunity. You can’t give him two bites at the cherry. So you have to be absolutely on the mark with your areas.”
“We want to be on from ball one to (Chris) Gayle, Virat (Kohli) will look to bat through, probably he is a wonderful player but AB certainly is a guy who can take the game away from you. This game, in some ways, is won and lost in the first 10 overs. We have to do the right job and make some inroads,” he reasoned.
Super Kings have beaten Royal Challengers twice this season but those results, Fleming said, had no relevance in a knockout game. “Nothing apart from the fact that we did well to beat them twice, they are a really good side,” he began.
“They will be handful because they played beautifully last night (against Rajasthan Royals). If you look at their top-three or four, it’s obvious to us that they are getting the majority of the runs, so that’s where the competition lies and if we can find a way through their top order and expose the middle order… We are confident that we have got a good game in us,” he explained.
The former New Zealand captain also asked his top-order batsmen to take more responsibility and score the majority of the runs. “The set batsmen are getting out at the wrong time,” he pointed out. “So, that’s not enabling our hitters to play at the right time. We are losing more wickets than we have lost in any IPL. So we are seeing a lot more batsmen having to play innings of substance.”
“What we need is top four or five to get the majority of runs and that’s probably been the difference this year compared to other years… We are missing out on runs at the top. But we have got a chance to rectify that, we got a really good top-order batting and the fact they have under-fired somewhat means that they are due to perform,” he hoped.