Stephen Fleming’s name has been doing the rounds as a possible successor to Gary Kirsten as India coach, but the former New Zealand captain has said he had not thought of taking up a full—time coaching job yet.
“I’m enjoying coaching the Chennai Super Kings. I got my hands full at CSK. It is a good experience. I haven’t thought a lot about my coaching career. It is something that I’ll consider as time goes on,” said Fleming, who is currently the coach of IPL side Chennai Super Kings.
“It’s a great challenge for two months of the year. I am still learning my coaching philosophies in these two months,” Fleming said.
Fleming said losing wickets at crucial moments was the reason for his side’s narrow loss against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium here Friday night.
“We are not quite getting across the victory line. We let another game slip away. We did OK in the field to restrict a powerful batting line up like theirs to 160 on a wicket that was getting better and better. We just lost key wickets at key moments,” said the New Zealander.
“Mike Hussey’s wicket was crucial, his wicket at the top—order. And also the skipper (M S Dhoni). Him not making runs is unusual. We just lost them at key moments and that kept costing a lot,” he said.
Fleming heaped praise on the fielding effort of Mumbai Indians, saying that it made a great difference between the two sides.
“The fielding in the IPL has been super-standard. We saw it tonight. They are a terrific fielding side. Probably saved at least 15-20 runs. There was a great catch to get rid of the skipper (M.S. Dhoni). That made the difference. We can’t field like them but we can get better,” he said.
He said though his side were competing well in the IPL, they will have to start winning games to ensure that they do not fall behind in the competition.
“We are competing well enough. We just got to make sure that we find that winning formula. We just start like this everytime and keep getting better as the tournament goes. We need to work hard in the next weeks and try to get a couple of wins and be back in the competition. It is a long competition.
But we can’t afford to fall behind anymore.
“At this stage we need to get on a roll and win three or four games. If we can win a couple of games, we can find ourselves on the top of the order,” he said.
Fleming defended South African all—rounder Albie Morkel, who is yet to fire with the bat, saying that he has done well for the team in the past and was just going through a lean phase.
He admitted that the team was missing an experienced bowler like Muttiah Muralitharan.
Chennai next take on Pune Warriors at home on April 25.
