Riding on Harshal Patel and Glenn Maxwell's clinical bowling performance, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) registered a 13-run win over Chennai Super Kings (CSK), pushing the defending champions to the brink of elimination in the IPL on Wednesday (May 4).
The quartet of Mahipal Lomror, who smashed a 27-ball 42, skipper Faf du Plessis (38 off 22), Virat Kohli (30 off 33) and Dinesh Karthik (27 not out off 17) did well to lift RCB to 173/8. RCB bowlers then restricted the defending champions to 160 for 8, despite a fifty by opener Devon Conway (56).
Meanwhile, CSK coach Stephen Fleming is not too concerned about the form of Ravindra Jadeja but said going forward, the team will evaluate which position in the batting order best suits the star all-rounder.
In the 10 matches this season, Jadeja has scored just 116 runs at an average of 19.33 in 10 games, while taking five wickets at an economy rate of 7.52.
On Wednesday, Jadeja was dismissed for a lowly score of three.
"No, I am not concerned. The T20 game can be tough and when you are batting at no.5 or 6, you do not get a lot of time to get your rhythm or tempo," Fleming said during a virtual press conference.
"We will look at it now and work out what the best order would be going forward. But, no I am not concerned about his form." Terribly out of form, Jadeja had last week handed back captaincy to Mahendra Singh Dhoni to focus on his own game.
With just six points from 10 games, CSK are virtually out of the tournament and Fleming admitted they "have been off in all departments." "Our fielding at times, the catches we dropped is of concern. We are not far away, in lot of games you can say we were really close in winning them.
"We had the games taken away or we were not good enough to get across the line. But that's usually the story of the competition if you are just off. All three departments have been below par," he said.
"We lost some bowlers also, you have to acknowledge that but yeah, we have been just off." Injuries to key players have also affected CSK with Deepak Chahar being the most prominent member to miss the entire season due to a back injury which he sustained while recovering from the quadricep tear.
Moeen Ali also missed a few games after injuring his ankle during a training session.
"We had a couple of players we had in our plans whom we lost early on, so we looked at bringing young players in, probably, little bit ahead of their times. Mukesh Choudhury has developed well, Simranjit is getting an opportunity here," Fleming said.
