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Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are still alive in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 playoffs race but it seems like captain Ruturaj Gaikwad and head coach Stephen Fleming don’t believe in permutations and combinations working in their favour. After the seventh defeat of the season, they rued absence of key players due to injury. As CSK may fail to make it to playoffs for the third consecutive season, their five-time IPL-winning head coach Fleming has left it to the franchise’s management to keep him or let him go. The former New Zealand skipper pointed out that a few new players have been introduced who may carry CSK’s legacy but understands that his tenure will be judged on results.
“Well, it’s always a choice for the management. There’s been a lot of talk about it. There’s a lot of good things we’ve done. We’ve introduced some new players that will be hopefully generation players for the CSK, but I know we are judged on results, that’s fair. So yeah, that’s the management’s call,” Fleming said.
Transition, injuries and late planning affected CSK’s season
Fleming admitted that CSK were a year behind in terms of planning as they had to make several changes to their squad. He rued a poor start to their campaign but lauded the comeback. The former Kiwi opener said that CSK lost momentum due to injuries to their players – Khaleel Ahmed, Ayush Mhatre, Jamie Overton, Ramakrishna Ghosh, MS Dhoni.
“We knew coming into the season we’re a little bit behind in terms of other teams having a year to beat down their plans. We had made a lot of changes halfway through the first year of the cycle and we made more changes going into this year. It would have been great to have started well, but we started poorly. And then I was really proud of the recovery to get back and win, I think six out of eight and get back into the mix was really satisfying. There was a style of cricket that we were developing that was working. But yeah, we had injuries to key players, which sort of stopped a bit of momentum and made us a little bit unsettled in terms of having to keep changing the team,” Fleming said.
CSK to face GT next with outside chance of playoffs spot
The five-wicket loss to SRH at home meant CSK slip to sixth position on the points table, just above Delhi Capitals (DC) on the basis of net run rate (NRR). CSK will face Gujarat Titans (GT) in their next game away from home. A win may not guarantee them a place in playoffs as it will be dependent on results of other games.
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