Tight overs from Bhajji created pressure: Fleming

Chasing 161 for victory, KL Rahul and Sarfaraz Khan hit half-centuries, but were unable to chip in with boundaries at regular intervals. “Sometimes, the benefit of having only five bowlers is that there is nowhere to hide, we have got to make the adjustment pretty quickly. Couple of tight overs by Harbhajan and a good one from Imran just created a bit more pressure in those last few overs,” said Fleming during the post-match press conference.

With Dwayne Bravo missing out due to a hamstring strain, the job of bowling at the death was given to Scott Kuggeleijn. The Kiwi pacer, who was rusty in his first two overs, closed out his spell well. “In the second time-out, the boys were discussing the options. We were probably behind the game at that time. Scott didn’t bowl in the right areas in his first spell, we had some improvement there (at the end). It (KXIP) losing only two wickets was a concern. But when Scott got a feel of what length to bowl, we saw how hard it was going to be to score.” Faf du Plessis made his debut appearance of IPL 2019, smashing a half-century as an opener. Fleming stated the Chepauk strip was tough to bat on, but added the South African applied himself well. “He has been in some good form with South Africa. He can manipulate the bowling pretty well and he has got some good power. He was able to keep the momentum going. It wasn’t an easy track, but the longer players batted, there was more chance of getting an innings of substance,” Fleming praised the CSK batter.