May 22, 2025 - Chennai Super Kings (CSK) head coach Stephen Fleming has spoken out openly about his team’s poor performance. After the defeat against Rajasthan, the CSK coach admitted that CSK has performed badly this season and therefore, landed at the bottom of the table.

He also hoped that the team would finish their IPL journey with a win in their last league match.

CSK is scheduled to play their final league match against Gujarat Titans on May 25.

What Fleming Said

After losing by six wickets to the Rajasthan Royals (RR), CSK head coach admitted his team’s mistakes. In the press conference, he said:

“We don’t like being at the bottom of the points table, but that isn’t our motivation. We just wanted to play well. We are trying to put together some good performances. Our goal was to do well in the last two matches, and now we want to end the season with a win. It’s true that we are at the bottom. We have played this kind of cricket, so we can’t escape it.”

He also pointed to the top order’s struggles as a key reason for CSK’s poor run this season. Needing better starts, they tried new openers; young Ayush Mhatre and Anshul Kamboj showed promise late in the league.

Fleming added, “Our batting order isn’t right at the moment, and we are working to rebuild it. We have strong ideas for next year, so we will cover all aspects. But this year it hasn’t worked because we haven’t gotten runs at the top. Batting depends largely on how you start, then players can do their job. We haven’t had those starts. So we’ve been trying to link together small contributions instead of playing big innings.”