Chennai, April 30 (IANS) Casting aside the track record and ‘paper strength’, Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming emphasized the old saying in the shorter version of cricket that form on the day matters more than the reputations.
The former New Zealand captain pointed out that almost every team looked good on paper, but it did not always reflect in the performances on the field of play as he looked ahead to Sunday night’s game here against the Deccan Chargers in the Indian Premier League.
He was specifically referring to the Chargers who boast of a top class opening bowling attack in Dale Steyn and Ishant Sharma.
‘The Chargers are a very well balanced side. The seam attack has (Dale) Steyn at one end the big guy (Ishant Sharma) coming in at the other. They are a handy side.’
‘But we don’t really look at the opposition too much. Every side you play is good on paper and it’s about pressure and how you deal with pressure.’
‘We don’t analyse the teams too much. We shy away because some of the things look too good on paper. Form really is the last game in this competition. It can change very quickly,’ said Fleming in the customary pre-match media conference here Saturday.
While admitting to his team’s inconsistent performance thus far, despite the two back-to-back wins against the Pune Warriors, Fleming felt that things were looking up given the form the players were running into.
‘We weren’t overly worried about ‘home’ and ‘away’ (ground). The way it’s panned out, we have played better at home but we still created chances while we played away.’
‘The last game (in Navi Mumbai) was a very disciplined effort on the back of a good performance here. So the last three games have been pretty rewarding. It’s good in a way that we played the same team twice.
‘We don’t experiment anyway, but we work pretty hard on getting the right 11 players (for the match). We were forced to experiment in the last game as we didn’t have Albie Morkel. But Albie looks like he’s coming through training pretty well.’
‘The pitch looks similar and we seem to know these conditions and I don’t think we’ll deviate too much from it,’ said Fleming.
The coach portrayed a glowing picture of his team’s batting line-up where all the top order batsmen have run into form.
‘Our top order is one of the biggest around with Badrinath being in form and we’ve got some wonderful Indian players along with Michael Hussey.’
‘So we’re well-equipped to deal with any attack with Morkel, Dhoni and Raina. We’ve got some of the biggest hitters around. And the talent we’ve got in our top six can outshine any other top six and they’ve performed for us,’ he said.
