Chennai Super Kings\u2019 coach Stephen Fleming is happy that pivotal role played by veteran trio of MS Dhoni, Shane Watson and Dwayne Bravo have shut the sceptics, who termed the team as Dad\u2019s Army.<\/p>\n
Dhoni and Watson are months shy from being 37 while Bravo is in his 35th year. However all three have made major contribution CSK\u2019s six wins out of eight.<\/p>\n
Dhoni has three half centuries while Watson has a century and a half-ton. Bravo has played a blinder at the start and been mostly economical with the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cAge isn\u2019t really a barrier. I still think the big guys are still have a lot to give. The calmness around the group plays a big part. Yes, we have some youngsters around but under pressure experience counts. There\u2019s not many games where you don\u2019t have pressure,\u201d Fleming told reporters on the eve of their return leg fixture against Kolkata Knight Riders here.<\/p>\n
CSK have put up 200-plus totals four times this season and Fleming said it would have been a concern if they were not getting one more than what their opponents were getting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the silver lining. It\u2019s keeping us on the edge and making us uncomfortable about each game which is a good thing from a coach\u2019s point of view. Most times we have put up fight that matched them. If you lose three four games you are down in the bottom, we know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest gain for CSK has been Ambati Rayudu who has done well both as an opener and also at No 4 as he leads the run charts with 370 runs from eight matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just shows how flexible and how calm he is at the crease. He is having a fantastic season. He has been massive for us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Young South African pacer Lungi Ngidi made his presence felt in his debut as he returned with a tidy 1\/26.<\/p>\n
Fleming said he\u2019s looking forward to relish the conditions on the seaming Eden Gardens wicket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been excited about him for a while. He has a massive presence, conditions like the new Kolkata pitch, it would be exciting to see him have a go (at KKR).\u201d<\/p>\n
Wary of KKR\u2019s spin attack, Fleming said: \u201cThere is not much time to relax as a bowling unit. We just got to combat the spinners. The spinners are the key weapon for KKR, there is no secret around that. (So we have to) find a way through that. At some point, we have to take a risk so just trying find a way to do that (is the key).\u201d<\/p>\n
Robin Uthappa is yet to score a half-century in eight matches and Fleming said they\u2019re aware of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes me worried as it means he is due for a big knock. If we can get him early, it\u2019s good for us as he is an aggressive player. I have seen a lot of him and he has played well against us. He is one we would like to get early.\u201d<\/p>\n
KKR find themselves at number four after eight matches with four wins and their target is to win at least three four more to secure a play-off berth, young pacer Shivam Mavi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been playing some good cricket. We have six matches to go. Our target would be to win the remaining four-five matches from here on,\u201d the Under-19 World Cup winning pacer said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chennai Super Kings\u2019 coach Stephen Fleming is happy that pivotal role played by veteran trio of MS Dhoni, Shane Watson and Dwayne Bravo have shut the sceptics, who termed the team as Dad\u2019s Army. Dhoni and Watson are months shy from being 37 while Bravo is in his 35th year. However all three have made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29991,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29989\/revisions\/29991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}