Published: May 28, 2023, 01:19 PM (IST)
Edited: May 28, 2023, 01:19 PM (IST)
Ahmedabad: The final match of IPL 2023 will be played between Chennai Super Kings and Gujarat Titans on May 28 (Friday) at Narendra Modi Stadium. CSK head coach Stephen Fleming on Saturday said that the four-time winners are better prepared for the IPL final against Gujarat Titans than any other time in the past, when conditions affected their performance.
Fleming said CSK’s win-loss ratio remained around 50 per cent because they would usually build and prepare their squads keeping the conditions and pitches at the home venue at Chepauk in mind, but that is not the case anymore.
He said the team would be ready for any conditions — there are rains expected during the final here on Sunday — and that they have erred in reading conditions and pitches in the past.
“We geared ourselves up so well for Chennai that we did struggle with conditions at times in away games, so the finals were always a little bit of a challenge, and our record is about 50 per cent of winning the final,” Fleming said during the pre-match press conference.
“It is maybe due to the style of the game we created — a victim of being so good at home that we had to make adjustments when we went to a neutral venue.” Fleming said CSK were “a bit more rounded” this year.
“Because of that going back to Chennai (for Qualifier 1), it was hard. I wanted to bowl (first) in the last qualifying game and batting proved to be the right call and MS (Dhoni) was the other way in the last game,” he said.
“So we are well off the mark in trying to get the conditions right but the team is rounded enough to put performances together. Come the final, we are not worried as to what conditions we get, there are two pitches to choose from now but we are not too worried. We are a lot better placed than what we had been in the past,” he said.
The former New Zealand captain said that making early breakthroughs will be key for his side as GT batter Shubman Gill’s red-hot form presents the biggest challenge for CSK. “He (Gill) is playing really well. It (the plans) does not really change, you hope that you pick him up early, you have enough firepower to create an opportunity. The only thing that we are looking at is when you have got openers, when they are in such good form, there is an opportunity to get into the middle order.
“If we can get a couple of early breakthroughs then, (just like) in the last game we played there is an opportunity. But we got to get past him, he is playing really well,” Fleming said.
(Inputs PTI)
