Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming admitted that his team missed a trick in the IPL 2025 auction, after CSK suffered a loss to Sunrisers Hyderabad on Friday.
The five-wicket defeat at Chepauk all but confirms that CSK will miss out on a playoff spot this season.
“It’s hard to say we’ve got it completely right. We have been looking over our performance and style of play in detail, and how the game is evolving. It’s not easy, and that’s why we’re proud of our record and that we’ve been able to be consistent for so long.
It doesn’t take much for it to go another way. Other teams have gotten better, but we just haven’t gotten it right, so you take responsibility from the top down. That [auction] has to be an area where we need to reflect and say it wasn’t as good as what it could have been, but it’s also not perfect science,” said Fleming at the post-match press conference on Friday.
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Fleming also lamented the impact of Kamindu Mendis’ catch of Dewald Brewis, which re-laid the tempo of the CSK’s batting innings.
“I thought Brevis was outstanding. But, again, we were probably victims of a match-winning catch. It was an outstanding catch [by Mendis]. We had Riyan Parag, who took a great catch as well [against us]. So a couple of key moments there that they [our opposition] earned and did well,” added Fleming.
The former Kiwi batter also observed that CSK’s performance on Friday was largely reflective of its underwhelming season.
“Well, the game sort of sums up the season. I thought there was a bit of an intent tent today with the bat, and that’s something we’ve been looking for. We created some chances [with the ball]. But we were just probably 25 runs short of a match-winning score
It’s a more positive performance. But there were still some clumsy errors at crucial times that just put us back, and we need to be building a bit of momentum and some pressure, and we just couldn’t sustain that long enough, unfortunately,” said Fleming.
