After a comprehensive win against the Sunrisers Hyderabad, the Kolkata Knight Riders have arrived in Punjab to take on the Kings XI Punjab in Mohali. The hosts too will be riding on the confidence of beating the Rising Pune Supergiants to register the first win of VIVO IPL 2016 as they look to add to their points tally when they take the field on April 17. The openers have been key to the fortunes of most teams in recent matches of the tournament – Manan Vohra helped KXIP to their first win, KKR captain Gautam Gambhir’s knock took the team to a thumping win against SRH, Brendon McCullum and Aaron Finch have done the job for the Gujarat Lions, Ajinkya Rahane helped RPS chase the target, Rohit Sharma did the needful for Mumbai Indians while Quinton de Kock played match-winning knocks in the Delhi Daredevils two victories. KKR’s Gambhir - Uthappa pair has forged seven fifty-plus stands in IPL in a chase, which is the most for any opening pair. In the opposite camp, Murali Vijay and Vohra have been looking to set the game up KXIP this season and were instrumental in their only win thus far. Speaking about the KKR openers, Assistant Coach Simon Katich said, “I think the fact is that they’re both mature players. Gautam is 34 years of age and he still has a good deal of cricket in front of him. He’s hungry and he’s keen and he’s showing that out in the middle. Robin as well, he’s 30, as a batsman he has got his best days in front of him. To have those two, who have batted together a fair bit, that helps. They’re comfortable knowing that that is their role for their team and they’re comfortable playing that role day in and day out. That probably takes a bit of pressure off knowing that they’re settled there. Some other teams are maybe still trying to find the right combinations at the top of the order.” Asked if is easier as a top order batsman to get going with the ball coming on nicely, Katich explained, “There’s no doubt that the openers have a big advantage in this form of the game. They get to bat when the field is up, they get to settle in in the first few overs. And if they settle in and get some boundaries away then all of a sudden they can do some damage in the middle overs where it is harder to find the boundaries. Fortunately, for us our top order is in good form. Manish Pandey’s innings against Mumbai was outstanding. Having watched him throughout the summer in Australia where he got his hundred in Sydney, where he batted beautifully, there is no doubt that we’re blessed to have this top order. Could do damage in the first six but also then, outside of the six overs — when the Poweprlay ends, still put pressure on the spinners in that period.”

While discussing the middle-order which hasn’t spent too much time in the middle yet, the assistant coach mentioned, “Yeah, that’s always an issue when you play this form of the game and you chase and the top order bats so well. But it’s not a bad situation to be in. Obviously, we’d be delighted if we had three wins and no losses. But look, we learnt a lot from the second game (against Mumbai Indians). We learnt that we were sloppy on the field and we addressed that. The way the boys bounced back in Hyderabad, particularly with the ball and on the field was impressive. Sometimes you have to go through those learning experiences to learn to not take it for granted. From a batting point of view, ideally we would have liked more of the guys to have a hit but the top-order has done such a good job that they’re not getting a chance.” “The guys are preparing well in the nets and they’re doing everything possible to make sure they’re ready to go. So, until they get an opportunity in the middle we just have to wait till that happens,” he added. Assessing the opposition, KXIP, Katich said, “They’re a dangerous team, like every team. You have four good overseas players. You’ve got a combination of very good Indian players and their opening partnership is as good as any that’s going around. Vijay and Vohra, and they both are in good form. They probably haven’t capitalised on their partnership in the previous games. That’s something they obviously addressed yesterday. (Glenn) Maxwell is a dangerous player and so is (David) Miller and so is Shaun Marsh. So, yeah they have got a dangerous team and as I was saying, it can all turnaround very quickly in this format; we had a poor game in the field and it cost us and we were, thankfully, able to turn it around it the next game. Our guys know that they need to come to the game with the right attitude and anything can happen. We expect it to be a tough battle tomorrow.”

Analysing the last match in Mohali between KXIP and RSP where the hosts registered a clinical win, he said, “Part of it is adapting to the wicket and a part of it is intent. We had a steady start to our innings when we were setting a target in Hyderabad. I know it’s different when you’re setting a score but you’ve always got a rough idea as to what the par score is at a venue. There is no doubt that our intent - when we had the time out in Hyderabad - after that was outstanding and it put the Sunrisers under pressure and we won in the 18th over which is exactly what we wanted to do - win the game comfortably and not put ourselves under pressure. To be able to do that with so many wickets left was a convincing performance. It’s something that our batting will have to deal with batting first, but I think we did that really well against Mumbai when we got 187 runs. We weren’t sure of that in Kolkata because sometimes the par score there is 150. It was a testament to our intent and our top order.” Asked if the wicket in Mohali is a lot like the one in Kolkata, Katich stated, “We saw a bit of the game yesterday and I think Steve Smith summed it up pretty well when he said they were 20-30 runs short. Generally, par is around 170 on this wicket. It’s a very good wicket. They obviously fell short of that and the Kings caught up. It was very good on the part of Kings XI to restrict Pune. We just got a look at the wicket this afternoon and we think it is going to play well.” Discussing if the big boundaries would work to the advantage of their spinners, he said, “That helps, but obviously it depends on where the ball pitches. If you pitch it up and it’s getting hit back over your head then… it’s only 71 metres. Straights (straight boundaries) are short, but I think we have a well-balanced team whether it spins or not. We have good seam options as well so it depends on who we go with.” KKR team news:

Katich on Hastings: Hastings has sustained an injury to his ankle which happened in a warm-up before the game against Mumbai Indians. He bowled through a fair bit of pain. He had a fair bit of scans after that and he has flown back to Australia. It’s a shame to see his campaign end prematurely. He had fitted in really well into the game and he had performed well in a couple of games. Yeah, unfortunately he’ll be doing a lot of rehab instead and working towards getting fit for the West Indies tour for Australia. Katich on availability of Brad Hogg: He started brilliantly for us. Arguably he has been our best bowler in the first couple of games. But he had a bit of food poisoning in Hyderabad and that slowed him down, which, we probably needed him to slow down a little .. terrorising teams, the old fella (laughs). He’s obviously vital member of the team. We’ll wait and see what Jacques wants for in the team. But he’s fit, he’s ready to go.