Brabourne outfield was as wet as Niagara Falls, says CSK coach Fleming

Stephen Fleming. Pic/PTI

Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming reckoned that the heavy dew factor at the Cricket Club of India affected his team's bowling efforts which resulted in his team's six-wicket loss to Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Brabourne Stadium on Thursday night.

CSK's skipper and left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja (0-21) bowled only two overs in the game while off-spinner Moeen Ali conceded 14 runs in his
solitary over.

When LSG needed 34 off the last 12 balls, chasing 210, the CSK skipper threw the ball to medium pacer Shivam Dube (1-0-25-0). It worked in LSG's favour as young Ayush Badoni (19 not out) dispatched the first ball over the square leg boundary.

West Indian Evin Lewis (23-ball 55 not out, 6x4, 3x6) did the rest by scoring 4, 4 and 6 in the last three deliveries. It left Maharashtra's left-arm pacer Mukesh Choudhary (0-39) to defend nine in the 20th over, but Lucknow secured a win with three balls to spare. "If you'd looked earlier on, spinning options were taken out of play because it [outfield at Brabourne] 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 [LSG] played well. We always knew we had to pick up an over somewhere, we were hoping to create enough of a run-rate towards the end," Fleming said during the post-match virtual press conference on Thursday.

It was a day of mixed feelings for CSK all-rounder Dube, who earlier in the day, smashed a 30-ball 49. But, his 19th over of the innings turned the equation.

"We always knew we had to pick an over somewhere. We were hoping to be able to create enough of a run-rate towards the end. Whether that was another spinner or a medium pacer, the decision was made in the middle to use Dube and they [LSG] countered it well. We always knew that one over was going to be pivotal," Fleming explained.