Ahead of his side’s Indian Premier League (IPL) clash against arch-rivals Mumbai Indians (MI), Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming hinted that pacer Matheesha Pathirana could miss the highly-anticipated game, though his injury is not as bad. MI and CSK will battle in a high-stakes ‘El Clasico’ of the IPL at Wankhede Stadium on Sunday. CSK is in the third spot, with three wins and two losses, giving them six points. They had registered a win over Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in their last game. On the other hand, MI is also picking up momentum, winning two games after three losses and are placed at the seventh spot. They had hammered Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in their previous game. Both sides have faced off on 36 occasions, with CSK ending victorious at 16 games and MI taking another 20 games. Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Stephen said about Pathirana, who missed games against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), “It (Pathirana’s niggle) was not as bad as what we had thought, so we are very hopeful that if not tomorrow, then very close. We know the importance of him in games like this, but we will make sure he is 100 per cent in this form,” Fleming told reporters ahead of the game. The coach was also all praises for the new skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad, who he said is “cut from the same cloth” as Dhoni. “There is no difference (between Gaikwad and Dhoni). He is as cool as it gets. I know the last captain was pretty cool. But this guy is cut from the same cloth, so that is rubbed through.” Fleming called Gaikwad rubbished all the talks around Gaikwad’s “slow” strike rate, saying that they need to be put into context. “He is such an impressive young man around his game and what he needs to do. He has been, I think, unfairly put into a bracket where he has been called slow. But you have to have context to some of these stats. We know that it is a bit of a Bollywood movie, sometimes getting these things up onto the screen. But he is fine. He is playing conditions well. The last game (CSK vs KKR) was a great example of how a leader plays, and there is class as well. I have absolutely no doubt about Ruturaj,” Fleming added. In five matches, Gaikwad has scored 155 runs in IPL 2024 at an average of 38.75 and a strike rate of 117.42. He has scored just one half-century, with the best score of 67*. Fleming said that though batting has evolved in the IPL over the year, there needs to be something that helps bowlers as well. “Batting, in particular, has evolved at a huge rate of knots, the last five years in particular. So now you are seeing some unbelievable skill. The challenge of the IPL, from a skill point of view, is how the bowlers can even the game up a little bit,” said Fleming. “The two bouncers (rule) is one, and maybe we need to keep looking at other ways to do that,” he added. Fleming said that his team looks forward to this highly-anticipated fixture, which has turned into a fine rivalry due to the team’s success over the years. Both sides have won five IPL titles each and it has over the years become the most star-studded and anticipated match over the years. “We love it. We look forward to this fixture. Over the years it has developed into a really competitive rivalry, and it is based on two good teams playing successful brands of cricket,” said Fleming. “Not by design, but more through results, it has worked out to a couple of successful franchises that have had opportunities to push ahead of the others. But look, in saying that every time you play a team these days, it feels like a massive rivalry or a massive game. So we try to keep things reasonably simple and part of the process of this game is to keep emotions down and just enjoy the occasion for what it is,” concluded Fleming. Squads Chennai Super Kings: Rachin Ravindra, Ruturaj Gaikwad(c), Daryl Mitchell, Shivam Dube, MS Dhoni(w), Ajinkya Rahane, Sameer Rizvi, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mustafizur Rahman, Tushar Deshpande, Maheesh Theekshana, Moeen Ali, Shaik Rasheed, Nishant Sindhu, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Mukesh Choudhary, Devon Conway, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Prashant Solanki, Simarjeet Singh, RS Hangargekar, Matheesha Pathirana, Aravelly Avanish Mumbai Indians: Ishan Kishan(w), Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya(c), Tilak Varma, Tim David, Romario Shepherd, Mohammad Nabi, Shreyas Gopal, Jasprit Bumrah, Gerald Coetzee, Akash Madhwal, Dewald Brevis, Naman Dhir, Nehal Wadhera, Harvik Desai, Piyush Chawla, Kwena Maphaka, Shams Mulani, Luke Wood, Arjun Tendulkar, Kumar Kartikeya, Shivalik Sharma, Nuwan Thushara, Anshul Kamboj.
