Stephen Fleming
Stephen Fleming. (Photo: Twitter)

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming explained the reason to hand the penultimate over to all-rounder Shivam Dube against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). LSG chased a huge score of 211, the sixth-highest run chase in IPL, to register their first win in the cash-rich league.

Quinton de Kock scored 61 off 45 balls including nine boundaries at a strike rate of 135.56. The South African player stitched 99 runs with skipper KL Rahul (40) for the opening wicket. The duo paved the way for the team’s massive chase against the four-time IPL champions.

Quinton de Kock, Evin Lewis scored half-centuries to guide LSG to a big run chase vs CSK

Quinton de Kock
Quinton de Kock. Image: BCCI

West Indies batter Evin Lewis pummelled six fours and three sixes in the course of his 23-ball 55, the fastest half-century in the IPL 2022 so far. Youngster Ayush Badoni scored a quick-fire 19 off nine balls to take his side past the finishing line.

A CSK side sans Deepak Chahar has been struggling with their inexperienced bowling unit in their first two games of IPL 2022 so far. Skipper Jadeja and Moeen Ali combinedly bowled three overs of spin for CSK.

LSG needed 34 runs in the last two overs and Dwayne Bravo, Tushar Deshpande and Dwaine Pretorious had completed their full quota of overs. Jadeja turned up to Dube to bowl the 19th over which didn’t result in CSK’s favour as the Mumbai player leaked 25 runs against Lewis and Badoni.

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The decision was made in the middle overs to use Shivam Dube: Stephen Fleming

Shivam Dube
Shivam Dube. Image: BCCI

Fleming mentioned that the decision to bowl Dube was already made in the middle overs of LSG’s innings and they were aware of being one bowler short as the spinners couldn’t execute in the wet conditions.

“If you’d looked earlier on, spinning options were taken out of play. Because it was like Niagara Falls in terms of the wetness and they [LSG] played well. So it was very hard to, one, grip the ball for a spinner and, two, to be effective. So early on, we were one over short but they played well,” Fleming said in the post-match press conference.

“We always knew we had to pick up an over somewhere – we were hoping to be able to create enough of a run-rate towards the end that we could squeeze someone in.

“Whether that was another spinner, the decision was made in the middle to use Dube, and they counted it well. So we always knew that one over was going to be pivotal and I think they did as well, but they played it very well,” he added. 

CSK will play their third game of IPL 2022 against Punjab Kings on April 3 at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai.

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Also Read: LSG vs CSK: There Was A Lot Of Dew, We Will Have To Practice With Wet Ball – Ravindra Jadeja After 6-wicket Loss To LSG