Stars’ egos should be hurting: Fleming

STEPHEN Fleming has put his megastar batsmen on notice after wild dismissals have triggered fatal batting collapses in Melbourne Stars’ winless start to the Big Bash League season.

But Fleming will stick with his misfiring Stars and refused to blame Kevin Pietersen’s absence for Boxing Day’s 13run loss to a Perth Scorchers side missing six of their biggest guns. While James Faulkner and Ben Dunk suffered minor hand injuries, Fleming said: “It’s the egos that should be hurting a lot more.”

Fleming said his top six was loaded with enough worldclass talent to chase down Perth’s 6-142 without Pietersen, who was watching on from England after spending Christmas with his family. Captain John Hastings yesterday said the 0-2 Stars probably had to win six out of the eight remaining games to retain their perfect record of reaching the semi-finals.

Fleming blasted the Stars’ first innings in last week’s loss to Brisbane as “clumsy, nervous and apprehensive”.

While Hastings and Fleming were pleased with how the bowlers responded in Perth, too much aggression with the bat proved costly.

“I’m not sure [making] changes are the key, because these are some of the best [batsmen] around,” Fleming said.

“On one hand you want to encourage the players to be dominant and to play aggressively, but on the other hand there’s still an element of batsmanship that has to be respected.’’