CSK captain and coach feel the pitch got tougher to bat in the second innings © BCCI/IPL Straight after CSK’s 50-run loss to RCB, once the handshakes were done, head coach Stephen Fleming walked to the match pitch with a member of Chepauk’s ground staff. Five days earlier, on the adjacent surface, 25 overs of spin dictated terms as CSK edged out Mumbai Indians. This time, seam, bounce, and two-paced deliveries turned the game on its head. “Well, as we’ve been telling you for a number of years, there was no home advantage at Chepauk,” an unusually terse Fleming said after CSK’s biggest home defeat. “We’ve won away from home a couple of times. And we haven’t been able to read… we’ve been really honest with you. We haven’t been able to read the wickets here in the last couple of years. So, it’s not new. We are trying to come to grips each day with what we get, and we don’t know.” CSK’s team-building strategy – of playing three frontline spinners – was predicated on home conditions favoring turn. But just two games in, that logic has been called into question. “It’s not the Chepauk [of old] where you can just go in and play four spinners,” Fleming admitted. “We’re having to work really hard to try and understand what the nature of each pitch is, and it’s quite different.” On Friday, CSK expected dew to aid their chase of 196. Instead, the pitch only got tackier. “No, we didn’t get it right,” Fleming said. “It’s so hard to read, but we thought it was going to skid on with the dew, but it actually got a bit tacky. So, it certainly made it harder here.” Captain Ruturaj Gaikwad echoed those thoughts. “I still feel 170 was a par score on this wicket. It wasn’t that easy to bat,” he said at the post-match presentation. “When you’re chasing 170, you have a little more time, but when you’re chasing 20 runs extra you have to bat differently in the PowerPlay, and it didn’t happen today. It got a little slower, it got a little sticky. The new ball was sticking a bit. Don’t know how it happened. Rahul backed his shot, I backed mine as well. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.” While CSK floundered with the bat, RCB’s top order ensured their total went beyond par. Phil Salt, Devdutt Padikkal, and Rajat Patidar played aggressive knocks to offset Virat Kohli’s unusually scratchy innings. Salt, in particular, provided a blistering start, smashing 32 off 16 in a 45-run opening stand. “I think it’s been made very clear to me why I’m here at RCB and what they were looking for in the auction to partner with Virat,” Salt said. “So the dynamics of the partnership I’m very aware of, and it’s to be aggressive and to take the pressure off the rest of the guys. “Especially when you come somewhere like here, if you don’t take advantage of those early seam overs, then you can be left up against it when the spin comes on and they can really take control of the game. So it was very key here and that was spoken about, yeah.” Salt also heaped praise on captain Patidar, who rode his luck to smash 51 off 32 before captaining his bowling attack to RCB’s first Chepauk win over CSK in 17 years. “I think he’s brilliant in all areas if I’m being honest with you,” Salt said. “I think the batting is right up there with the best around. I’ve not seen anybody hit spin the way that he can. “Obviously, he rode his luck a little bit tonight, but that’s the game. You get that in patches. I’ve not seen anyone hit the ball like him off spinners. Especially some of those slower balls that he hit for six, it was unbelievable. Then you come to his captaincy and he’s a cool head. He’s very calm under pressure. He’s got a very good cricket brain. He thinks about the game very deeply. As I’ve already said, the way that he spun the bowlers around tonight to make sure that we were keeping pressure on them at all times, there’s not much more you can ask for.”
