Ahead of his facet’s Indian Premier League (IPL) conflict in opposition to arch-rivals Mumbai Indians (MI), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming hinted that pacer Matheesha Pathirana could miss the highly-anticipated sport, although his damage just isn’t as unhealthy.
MI and CSK will battle in a high-stakes ‘El Clasico’ of the IPL at Wankhede Stadium on Sunday. CSK is within the third spot, with three wins and two losses, giving them six factors. They had registered a win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) of their final sport. On the opposite hand, MI can be selecting up momentum, successful two video games after three losses and are positioned on the seventh spot. They had hammered Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) of their earlier sport.
Both sides have confronted off on 36 events, with CSK ending victorious at 16 video games and MI taking one other 20 video games.
Speaking on the pre-match press convention, Stephen mentioned about Pathirana, who missed video games in opposition to Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), “It (Pathirana’s niggle) was not as bad as what we had thought, so we are very hopeful that if not tomorrow, then very close. We know the importance of him in games like this, but we will make sure he is 100 per cent in this form,” Fleming advised reporters forward of the sport.
The coach was additionally all praises for the brand new skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, who he mentioned is “cut from the same cloth” as Dhoni.
“There is no difference (between Gaikwad and Dhoni). He is as cool as it gets. I know the last captain was pretty cool. But this guy is cut from the same cloth, so that is rubbed through.”
Fleming known as Gaikwad rubbished all of the talks round Gaikwad’s “slow” strike price, saying that they want to be put into context.
“He is such an impressive young man around his game and what he needs to do. He has been, I think, unfairly put into a bracket where he has been called slow. But you have to have context to some of these stats. We know that it is a bit of a Bollywood movie, sometimes getting these things up onto the screen. But he is fine. He is playing conditions well. The last game (CSK vs KKR) was a great example of how a leader plays, and there is class as well. I have absolutely no doubt about Ruturaj,” Fleming added.
In 5 matches, Gaikwad has scored 155 runs in IPL 2024 at a mean of 38.75 and a strike price of 117.42. He has scored only one half-century, with the perfect rating of 67*.
Fleming mentioned that although batting has developed within the IPL over the yr, there wants to be one thing that helps bowlers as nicely.
“Batting, in particular, has evolved at a huge rate of knots, the last five years in particular. So now you are seeing some unbelievable skill. The challenge of the IPL, from a skill point of view, is how the bowlers can even the game up a little bit,” mentioned Fleming.
“The two bouncers (rule) is one, and maybe we need to keep looking at other ways to do that,” he added.
Fleming mentioned that his workforce seems ahead to this highly-anticipated fixture, which has become a high-quality rivalry due to the workforce’s success over time. Both sides have gained 5 IPL titles every and it has over time turn out to be probably the most star-studded and anticipated match over time.
“We love it. We look forward to this fixture. Over the years it has developed into a really competitive rivalry, and it is based on two good teams playing successful brands of cricket,” mentioned Fleming.
“Not by design, but more through results, it has worked out to a couple of successful franchises that have had opportunities to push ahead of the others. But look, in saying that every time you play a team these days, it feels like a massive rivalry or a massive game. So we try to keep things reasonably simple and part of the process of this game is to keep emotions down and just enjoy the occasion for what it is,” concluded Fleming.
Squads
Chennai Super Kings: Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni(w), Ajinkya Rahane, Sameer Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mustafizur Rahman, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana, Moeen Ali, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Mukesh Choudhary, Devon Conway, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Prashant Solanki, Simarjeet Singh, RS Hangargekar, Matheesha Pathirana, Aravelly Avanish
Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan(w), Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya(c), Tilak Varma, Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Mohammad Nabi, Shreyas Gopal, Jasprit Bumrah, Gerald Coetzee, Akash Madhwal, Dewald Brevis, Naman Dhir, Nehal Wadhera, Harvik Desai, Piyush Chawla, Kwena Maphaka, Shams Mulani, Luke Wood, Arjun Tendulkar, Kumar Kartikeya, Shivalik Sharma, Nuwan Thushara, Anshul Kamboj.
