Stephen Fleming, the head coach of Chennai Super Kings, backed his team’s captain, Ruturaj Gaikwad, who has been enduring a poor run in the ongoing Indian Premier League. With 63 runs in five innings, the right-hander has the lowest aggregate, average (12.60), and strike rate (105) among openers who have batted at least thrice this season.
“He’s going fine,” Fleming said about the captain’s form ahead of Chennai Super Kings’ encounter against Sunrisers Hyderabad. “He hasn’t had the returns that he would like, and he’s working hard on that. But that can be the nature of T20. He’s training well, he’s hitting the ball well, he has a positive mindset, he just hasn’t got away yet.
“But we’ve seen over the years that he’s a quality player,” he added on Friday. “And if we can cover for him for a few games and he comes into form, then that’s the way an IPL can go. Very rarely someone dominates the whole way through, but if we have players coming in and out of form and they dovetail, then that’s a good thing. But he’s working hard and he’s got a lot of support around him.”
The next fixture at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium offers that opportunity for Gaikwad to rediscover his mojo. On a surface which has usually enabled run-fests, Gaikwad will meet the fairly inexperienced attack of Sunrisers Hyderabad, so the opportunity is ripe for the under-fire opener.