Rising Pune Supergiants' poor performance infuriates coach Stephen Fleming

RISING PUNE SUPERGIANTS coach Stephen Fleming was disappointed with his side’s defeat against Kolkata Knight Riders. The former New Zealand captain described his team’s performance as ‘very poor’ and censured his players for not playing ‘winning cricket.’ 

As quoted by espncricinfo, the Kiwi stalwart said, 

“I thought today's performance was poor, performance in the field was I thought very poor. We are not playing winning cricket and that's all matters." 

This was Rising Pune Supergiants’ fourth consecutive defeat as the side failed to defend a modest total of 160 runs set against Kolkata on a pitch that was slow and taking turn. Furious over his side’s inability to protect a decent total, the 43-year-old did not hesitate to express his disappointment and anger over the team’s poor bowling and fielding. 

“160 was a good to very good score on this surface. We saw there was a lot of assistance for the slow bowlers, but we still did not adjust. We did not use that spin to create enough pressure. We kept Kolkata in the game. They hit well at crucial times, but our fielding and the bowling… the slow bowling in particular towards the middle overs was left wanting and that is disappointing. 161 was easily defendable."

However, the head coach believes the team has to move on from the defeat and get back to its winning ways.

“So it’s becoming pretty clear that whilst we don’t want to put the onus on getting victories, we have to get victories. We’re using up all those free lives. Even the last two games, we have a good chance of winning. We’ve just got to move on but there’s no doubt as a new team, trying to develop some culture and some camaraderie, but it does take a little bit of work.”

Supergiants, who are currently placed seventh in the league table lock horns against Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium on Tuesday.