"Like Niagara Falls": Chennai Super Kings Coach's Hilarious Take On Dew Factor In Mumbai

Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming has compared the dew during his team's IPL 2022 match against Lucknow Super Giants to the Niagara Falls, justifying their move to make Shivam Dube bowl the match-turning 19th over at the expense of spinners. With LSG needing 34 from 12 balls, the duo of Man-of-the-Match Evin Lewis and Ayush Badoni smashed Dube for 25 runs, to bring the equation down to nine from the last over at the Brabourne Stadium.

First-timers LSG then knocked off the required runs to win their first IPL match with three balls to spare on Thursday night.

"If you'd looked earlier on, spinning options were taken out of play because it was like Niagara Falls in terms of the wetness and they (LSG) played well," Fleming said the virtual post-match press conference.

"So it was very hard to, one, grip the ball for a spinner and, two, to be effective. So early on, we were one over short but they played well.

"We always knew we had to pick up an over somewhere -- we were hoping to be able to create enough of a run-rate towards the end that we could squeeze someone in." Skipper Ravindra Jadeja's two overs went for 21 runs while Moeen Ali gave away 14 runs in his one over, forcing CSK to rely on Dube's medium pace bowling.

"Whether that was another spinner, the decision was made in the middle to use Dube, and they counted it well.

"So we always knew that one over was going to be pivotal and I think they did as well, but they played it very well," Fleming added.

After setting a target of 211, CSK failed to get early breakthroughs as the duo of KL Rahul (40) and Quinton de Kock (61) put on 99 runs in 10 overs to lay a strong foundation for LSG.

The head coach reiterated that they had to go on the defensive after the