Vijay: Lack of partnerships did us in

"[W]e have not put up a show while batting, we lost too many wickets. In T20 it is very difficult to come back with just one batsman going at one end. There should have been a partnership but we were not able to do that," Vijay said.

Murali Vijay hopes his team will perform better in the middle overs.

Having lost yet another game because of poor batting, Kings XI Punjab was a disappointed side on Tuesday night. Its openers Murali Vijay and Manan Vohra could not get going and the rest, barring Shaun Marsh, failed to back it up against KKR.

Vijay emphasised the lack of partnerships and the struggling middle order after the defeat.

“Obviously, we have not put up a show while batting, we lost too many wickets. In T20 it is very difficult to come back with just one batsman going at one end. There should have been a partnership but we were not able to do that,” he admitted.

He may not admit it but with none of the other big names, including captain David Miller, not performing, KXIP has been over-reliant on the top two. On Tuesday, the pressure seemed to have finally got to both – Vohra completely failed to spot the fielder at midwicket and Vijay could not read Piyush Chawla’s turn, both falling while trying to go for a big hit.

“Pressure of winning is more than the responsibility that you have. For me, it is a happy space to be in because I’d love to be in this situation – getting the team to a winning position every time I go in. But yeah, we should be doing something in the middle overs which will help us in the future matches,” he said, admitting the rest of the batting hasn't backed them up.

Asked if the batsmen were guilty of wrong shot selection, Vijay was unequivocal. “Kind of. You hit the nail on the head,” he said adding that while the team had plans to tackle the KKR bowling, arguably the best in the competition, “it didn't come out well today”.

And while Vijay claimed it wasn’t an easy pitch to bat on, his counterpart Robin Uthappa was more than comfortable swatting the bowlers with ease in his 53-run knock. “It did get easy to bat later on,” Uthappa said before going on to add that KKR was able to read the opposition bowlers' plans well.

“We knew their fast bowlers would look to bowl slower balls and we were waiting for those balls. They came up with a certain plan, they were looking to bowl more into me, they were trying to get me out leg-before so I kinda opened up things for myself,” he explained.

With neither its plans nor its players working, it just wasn't KXIP's night out.