Chennai Super Kings (CSK) allrounder Sam Curran, who usually bats lower down the order, opened the innings on Tuesday.
He played with an attacking mindset and smashed two sixes and three boundaries. He scored 31 runs off just 21 balls.
CSK coach Stephen Fleming said that Curran was sent as the opener in order to give the side momentum at the start of their batting innings.
They changed their opening partnership, and the management sent in Curran as an opener instead of Shane Watson.
"We have had Sam padded up for pretty much every innings looking to inject him at a certain time. So we thought rather than getting clogged up and take one batting resource out and put him at the top of the order. We put the honours on the batting lineup rather than hiding and shuffling. That was the main reason behind sending Curran up the order. The trends of our losses were becoming similar so we needed to do something different. We just wanted to get Sam in the game, his training has been great and the decision was taken to give us momentum at the top," said Fleming during the post-match press conference.
"The first decision was made to put Sam in, it meant that one from Shane (Watson) or Faf (du Plessis) had to move. Just in terms of experience, Shane was a lot of it, so he is very well equipped to take the attack in the second half of the innings. Faf is very good in going over the top early and Shane has a power game which is good for the latter part of the innings," Fleming added.
