Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming satisfied with bowling and fielding displays

Chennai Super Kings coach Stephen Fleming accredited his team’s 25-run win over Pune Warriors India at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai to the bowlers and fielders of the side.

He urged the players to emulate the standard of fielding in the upcoming matches of the ongoing Indian Premier League.

“We would look to replicate this standard of fielding in our coming matches,” said the former New Zealand skipper while talking to the reporters at the post-match media conference. “Today, we were desperate to win. This kind of fielding helps the bowler to be a bit more confident and gives the skipper much more confidence to dictate the game.”

Fleming confessed that their fielding was below par in the previous games and they were desperate to make the difference. He insisted that the side still needs to work hard in this department.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men were quite unimpressive with the bat as the side managed to score 142 for 6 in 20 overs- thanks to the heroics of Michael Hussey who scored 61 off 48 balls hitting 4 boundaries and a six. In reply, the Warriors were 117 for 9 at the end of their allotted 20 overs.

The 38-year-old New Zealander admitted that Chennai were 15 odd runs short of a competitive score. Even then, he was happy with his bowlers and fielders were successful in putting the opposition under pressure in the second half of the game.

“We knew it was a below par score. Since our best players were struggling on that track, we felt it would be a tough score to attain,” said Fleming.

“We knew we had to bowl and field well. We increased the pressure on the rival batsmen as the match progressed. When they were scoring at six runs an over, we knew we had a good chance to win the match,” he added further.

The Chennai coach termed Jesse Ryder’s wicket as the turning point in the game. Fleming said that had the hard-hitting Kiwi batsman gone for some big hits, it would have been quite difficult for them to defend their total.

The defending champions are currently placed on number four on the tournament points table with a tally of 6 points from 3 victories in 5 games.

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Pakistan's bowling, fielding has improved during the last year-Waqar

Pakistan cricket coach Waqar Younis has said that the team has improved dramatically during the last 12-14 months, especially in the fielding and bowling departments.

Waqar  denied the opinion of former Pakistan Captain Javed Miandad, in which he expressed that Pakistan team had not shown any notable improvement in the bowling and fielding, despite having special coaches for these areas.

"I don't want to indulge in such things. I am doing my job on the field and during the last 12-14 months the team has shown improvement," Waqar said.

Waqar, however,admitted that there are some issues in the batting sector, which need to be addressed. Pakistan team's weakness in the batting and fielding departments was clearly exposed in the recently-concluded World Cup, where a poor performance in the both areas let them down.

The major cause of Pakistan's defeat in the mega event was terrible team's fielding, as the fielders wasted five simple chances in the high-voltage semi-final game against India.

However, Waqar has some different thoughts in the mind. The former reverse-swing master stated, "Our fielding has improved a lot. Though critics are not happy and mention just one game, i.e. the semi-final against India where we dropped a good number of catches. However, I think overall our fielding has made remarkable improvement."

There are some report circulating in the media that Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has been negotiating with two foreigners for the post of national team’s batting coach after Miandad turned down the offer to join the team as batting consultant.

Earlier, Miandad showed his readiness to coach national team but after that, he refused to accept the job. There is also a kind of 'war of words' going on between Waqar and Miandad.
Miandad apparently has some issues in working as a support staff with the chief coach, Waqar, who is one of his junior fellows.

The coach, who is with the in West Indies, further hoped that youngsters in the side would perform well in the forthcoming Test and one-day series against the Caribbean.

The former fast bowler explained that it is a general practice all over the World that the young players are inducted in the team while targeting the next World Cup. Thus, Pakistan has also put some new-comers in the set-up in order to build team for the next showpiece event.

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