Worried Fleming says CSK are still 'grappling' to find their best line-up

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) have responded to their early-season defeats - they have now lost three in a row in IPL 2025 - by ringing in the changes, but they are still struggling to find their best combination. It's a "conundrum". So says head coach Stephen Fleming, who is concerned by the lack of balance in the squad and the dearth of firepower in the batting line-up.

Four games into IPL 2025, CSK have cycled through 17 players, including all seven overseas options, which is a departure from their usual strategy of continuity in selection. No other side has used as many players this season.

"Yeah, that [finding the balance] is the conundrum at the moment," Fleming said at the press conference after CSK's loss to Delhi Capitals (DC) on Saturday. "To get more solidity at the top we have to remove obviously an overseas player, so we're grappling just with the combination that we need. When it doesn't go right, you pore over it and analyse that and see if it was the right call."

CSK have the worst scoring rate in the powerplay among all ten teams this season at this stage, and in order to remedy that, they brought in Devon Conway and reunited him with Rachin Ravindra at the top at the expense of Rahul Tripathi against DC. They also swapped out allrounder Jamie Overton for an Indian seamer in Mukesh Choudhary. The changes didn't work out, however, with Conway compounding CSK's powerplay troubles with another low score and Choudhary leaking 50 runs in his wicketless spell of four overs.

"We felt that our batting in the powerplays has been below par and going too hard was probably not the way, particularly on our wicket, which is a little bit tricky," Fleming said. "So we're looking just to settle that with guys that have been in good form and have done it before, so that's the theory behind that and that's what we'll possibly continue with.

"But it just comes down to run production. You can have all the tactics you like, if you've got a couple of players in form they can cover for others. But at the moment we're just not quite getting the big individual scores we need so that the cameos can do their part; we're getting starts but not quite enough."

After crashing to their biggest-ever defeat at Chepauk in terms of runs, in late March against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), CSK seemed dreadfully off the pace and out of depth in another chase, this time against DC in a day game on Saturday. They managed only 69 for 4 in ten overs in pursuit of 184, and by the time MS Dhoni walked out to bat in the next over, the asking rate had almost touched 12. Vijay Shankar had a particularly tortured stay in the middle while Dhoni also failed to bring out the big hits in the face of a mounting asking rate.

"The attempt was that we went out… a combination of they bowled well, I think the ball started to grip a little bit more," Fleming said. "Well, we understood it was going to be good for the first half and then gradually get slower, so we were keen to bat and then take pace off the ball and they did it really well. Vijay Shankar struggled to get timing all the way through his innings. But that period from 12 to 16 was difficult for all, it was tough to watch and certainly tough to be out there, so the game was just slipping away and even with intent and different methods to do it, it was just too big a scale."

CSK have now failed to chase 180-plus targets in their last ten attempts, dating back to 2020. Fleming admitted that it's another worry and called for more contributions from the top order.

"Yeah, whenever you're not doing something well, it concerns me," Fleming said. "That's the job. So we're looking to find the formula that will get us over the line. We're certainly well aware of the [180-plus] chasing stat.

"We are focusing hard bowling-wise to restrict teams below that [180], but we do need to be better with the bat. There's no doubt about it. We need to have one or two players in the form, predominantly the top three or four, and you look at the teams that are going, well, you'll see that the majority of the runs are getting scored through there, through the top four, so we need a bit more production there, and that then allows the more power-hitters or the players to finish off the coming in the right spots.

"We're having to introduce players, just not quite at the right time, and we've got [Shivam] Dube as well, who's close [to returning to form], but just not quite getting the job done."