The former champions Chennai Super Kings couldn’t start the Champions League T20 as they would have hoped and were stunned by Kolkata Knight Riders in the tournament opener.
CSK were cruising to a comfortable win, after taking five quick wickets, but a counterattack from Ryan ten Doeschate and Andre Russell stole a win from them.
Both Doeschate and Russell scored fifties and hammered the Super Kings bowlers in the death overs and turned the course of the match in their way.
The Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming insisted that bowling in the final overs requires more than just skills and despite having good options it is difficult to contain batsmen.
“It is about pressure to deliver there,” Fleming insisted. “The hitting power of batsmen these days are improving and it really is difficult task for the death bowlers to deliver.”
“Well we got few options,” he added. “I don’t think any team in the world barring a team having (Lasith) Malinga would be comfortable with the death bowling. This was reflected in last night’s match where two sixes were nailed off in last two deliveries off a good death bowler.”
Fleming pointed out that CSK has good death bowlers but they need some total to defend on the board to execute their plans as per their likings.
“We got Mohit Sharma, Ashish Nehra and Dwayne Bravo, tasked for doing that job, but we try and give them a good total and finish off the game off our favour,” Fleming explained. “The other day we lost because we did not have enough score on the board.”
