Just when everything seemed to going in the right direction, Chennai Super Kings suffered a humiliating 34-run defeat against bottom-place Delhi Daredevils here on Friday night.
Chennai were only the second team to qualify for the play-offs and also had a faintest of chance to replace Sunrisers Hyderabad at the top of the table. However, all those hopes came dashing down after a struggling below-par Delhi pulled a massive upset at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium.
CSK's bowlers did well, barring the last over from Dwayne Bravo which went for 162. However, it's the batsmen who let them down.
Close to the 10-over, CSK were placed in a good position to chase down total. Ambati Rayudu had just reached his 50 and even though they were slight below the required run-rate, the nine wickets in hand must have made them the heavy favourites. But once Rayudu was out, others struggled to score freely.
The way their skipper MS Dhoni and Suresh Raina were struggling for boundaries was an unusual sight to witness this season.
When asked to elaborate on what went wrong, CSK coach said: "They bowled well. Raina got out after the break. If you pushed on from there, the game would have been a lot different. But they bowled well and they took their catches and applied pressure.
"When you lose wickets chasing a medium score on a slowish pitch, it's always going to be hard because to start an innings becomes difficult. We just failed to get an innings of substance. It was a close game but once we started losing wickets, we fell behind and couldn't catch up," he added
Fleming did not hesitate to point the finger at their batsmen for losing the game. "I think we lost the game with the bat. We bowled pretty well. We were still pretty happy with 160. We were not able to generate partnerships of substance.
"It brought the slowness of wicket into play. It was hard to generate any momentum though we did have the intent. I thought the wicket would speed up like it tends to do here but they took the pace of the ball nicely and their lead spinners created pressure," the former New Zealand captain said.
Fleming also defended the West Indian all-rounder, despite conceding 26 runs in the last over, which helped Delhi post a decent total on board.
"Most teams have problems in the death overs. In the game before, Bravo helped us restricting the opposition to 180 when it was set to reach 200. It is just the nature of the game. Some days you can have good days, some days you can be on the wrong side of it. Dwayne's had some really good days for us in this tournament and he has had a couple of days where he has just fallen behind. Overall, the bowling effort was very good," said Fleming during the post-match press conference on Friday night.
With just one more game left for CSK before the start of the play-offs, it is imperative for the team to quickly regroup and get their act together if they want to end the season on a successful note.