IPL: Losing 3 games in a row is matter of concern, says Stephen Fleming

Having consolidated their place in the playoffs, the Chennai Super Kings under the leadership of MS Dhoni suffered their third defeat in a row on Thursday.

KL Rahul scored an unbeaten 98 off 42 balls, helping Punjab Kings crush Chennai Super Kings by six wickets in an inconsequential IPL encounter on Thursday.

Chasing 135 for victory, the Punjab team stormed to victory in 13 overs as the CSK skipper MS Dhoni could not find answers to stop Rahul’s onslaught.

The Chennai Super Kings middle-order has failed to capitalize on the starts provided by their openers Ruturaj Gaikwad and Faf du Plessis.

“You have to be concerned when you lose three games in a row. Batting first, coming to grips with setting a total, I think it has been a little tricky going around the venues trying to find the target scores,” Fleming said after their six-wicket defeat against Punjab Kings.

“I am not overly worried going forward going forward because it can change very quickly. You always get a couple on the way. In my experience, it has always been the case. We have a little bit of leeway.

“The confidence and the method that we use, we have to tune that up in the next couple of days,” added Fleming.

About the injury status of veteran left-hander Suresh Raina and if he would be available for the play-offs, he said, “I am not really sure about Suresh…with regard to his injury status.”

Asked what was wrong during the CSK batting, the head coach described it as a pretty much stunted effort.

“We could not find a method to get any fluency into our batting, trying to find the best way to take the bowling on…It was probably a bit slow. Getting the pace of the wicket and trying to find the tempo to create a score. We just came up a short. Whenever we get close, we lose a wicket. It was a much pretty stunted effort in the first innings to keep us below par,” he said.