Fleming believes CSK missed a trick in the auction, saying ‘We just haven’t been able to get it right’ this year.
Fleming believes an under-par auction meant that his CSK side are playing catch-up from the word go.
After the Chennai Super Kings suffered their seventh loss in nine IPL 2025 games, coach Stephen Fleming linked their problems to the auction.
After CSK’s batting once again failed to muster a respectable score against Sunrisers Hyderabad, he remarked, “It is hard to say we got it completely right with the performances that we have had.” They lost by five wickets after being knocked out for 154. Therefore, we have been closely examining that in relation to our playing style. examining the game’s evolution as well.
“And it is not easy. And that is why we are proud of our record today. We have been able to be consistent for so long and it doesn’t take much for it to go another way. Other teams have got better and that is the point of the auction. But we just haven’t been able to get it right.”
CSK attempted to make up for that by using players who weren’t supposed to be there, such as Shivam Dube as a finisher, Ravindra Jadeja as batsman up the order, R Ashwin in the powerplay, and asking MS Dhoni to bat for much longer than he can because he is 43 years old and his knees aren’t in perfect condition.
“So you take responsibility from the top down and then you just ask a little more of the players,” Fleming said. “But yeah, that has to be an area where we need to reflect and say it wasn’t as good as what it could have been or it hasn’t worked out how we wanted.”
In terms of run rates and boundaries hit, CSK is at the bottom of the leaderboard, while in terms of dot-ball percentage, they are close to the top. After using 20 of their 27 players going into the match, they gave Dewald Brevis his first appearance and promoted Ayush Mhatre, their youngest player ever, to start the batting.
“It is also not perfect science,” Fleming said. “The auction is a very fluid beast. It’s like buying [for] 25 hours and see it come away at the end of it mentally and sometimes physically exhausted. And to be fair, I still think we have got a good squad. We are not far away.
“A couple of key injuries, just a bit of a lack of form. And we have just struggled really to nail a gameplan. We’ve chopped and changed too much. I think it was trying to look for something that perhaps we felt wasn’t there. So yeah, there is a lot of responsibility and soul-searching and it certainly starts with me at the top, 100%”