Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming feels his team was not intimidating enough and lacked the winning attitude against >Kolkata Knight Riders , who snatched an unexpected victory against the former champions in an IPL match in Kolkata.
“It’s more of the attitude that hurt us, we were a bit soft as we intimidate our way in when things don’t go our way but the attitude was not there today, quite unlike of CSK. Once things going our way, we were a bit soft,” Fleming said after the eight-wicket loss on Tuesday night.
“I can’t help but feel that we led them into the game in the first few overs and gave them a good start. They relied heavily on the openers and we helped their cause,” he added.
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Robin Uthappa was dropped on six and on 24 before he went on to score a match-winning 67 helping KKR chase down 155 with two overs to spare.
“The nature of the loss was disappointing and we need to rectify that quickly. We dropped catches, we made a habit of dropping some key players in this tournament. It made us pay today, took the game away from us in very quick time. It was just a case of sitting back and minimising the damage,” the former New Zealand player stated.
Fleming maintained that the target of 155 was a par score on the slow Eden surface.
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“We had a bad day, we played poorly. 154 was not a bad score, probably a par total on this wicket but we did not have a good day in bowling and fielding,” he said.
“It still is a very good fielding team. Look these things can happen. It’s just a split moment things that can happen.
Slip catches going down probably uncommon in T20 but (fielding coach) Steve Rixon training the fielders a lot. It’s an area we need to work on,” he added.
On a slow surface, Chennai went the other way and bolstered their pace attack with an extra seamer by bringing in Ben Hilfenhaus — a move that backfired as the Aussie conceded 38 runs from his three overs.
Fleming, however, begged to differ and said, “I think the ball nipped around too much. The seamers created enough opportunities. The guys did not take it. If we got a couple of early ones, even later on Ishwar Pandey was getting the ball to nip around.
“The balance of the side was right it’s just that we did not execute well enough. KKR just cashed in on it and batted beautifully. They did it really well.”