Follow UsIt’s not always that you hear someone from MS Dhoni’s camp say that they failed to read the pitch at their home ground. But that was the situation on March 28 (Friday), as Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming lamented the lack of home advantage at Chepauk.
"Well, as we've been telling you for a number of years, there was no home advantage at Chepauk. We've won away from home a couple of times,” Fleming said in the post-match press conference after CSK were humiliated at home in a 50-run loss against the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in Match 8 of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
“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 grip each day with what we get, and we don't know,” added the man who has been at the helm of the team since 2009.
Giving an example of how it is not the Chepauk that the CSK knew, Fleming explained how their chase of 197 was completely derailed because of the understanding of the wicket that they had developed failing them.
"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,” he said.
The 51-year-old was quick to point out that at this new Chepauk, one just cannot pick four spinners in the playing 11 and wish to win any more.
"It's not the Chepauk [of old] where you can just go in and play four spinners. We're having to work really hard to try and understand what the nature of each pitch is, and it's quite different,” he said.
In IPL 2024 at Chepauk, pacers picked up nearly three times more wickets than spinners (74 to 25) and CSK won five of their seven games.