Their bowling once again failed to live up to expectations while the fielding was also below-par as Royal Challengers Bangalore continued their poor run in IPL-11 with a six-wicket defeat to Kolkata Knight Riders in Bengaluru, on Sunday.
KKR opener Chris Lynn steered his team home with an unbeaten innings of 62 from 52 balls. He was dropped on seven by Murugan Ashwin off the bowling of Yuzvendra Chahal, in the fourth over, and that proved to be quite a costly miss for RCB.
The hosts had posted a competitive 175 for four riding on captain Virat Kohli's 68 from 44 balls after KKR had elected to bowl.
Lynn and Sunil Narine gave KKR the perfect start as they put on 59 runs for the opening wicket from 43 balls before the latter was dismissed by Ashwin, caught at long-off, after scoring 27 from 19 balls.
Robin Uthappa ensured that KKR didn't lose the tempo as he stroked an attacking 36 from 21 balls before he also perished to Ashwin.
RCB got some hope when Nitish Rana retired with injury on 15 and birthday boy Andre Russell fell for a first-ball duck to Mohammed Siraj, in the 17th over.
But KKR skipper Dinesh Karthik doused all their hopes as he blasted 23 from 10 balls and by the time he was dismissed in the penultimate over to Siraj to a brilliant diving catch by Kohli, the fate of the contest was already decided.
Lynn hit seven fours and a six during his 52-ball knock but it was the young Shubman Gill, who stroked the winning runs, cutting a short ball from Umesh Yadav for a four past point, in the final over.
With this win, KKR managed to end their run of two back to back defeats but they stay fourth with eight points from eight games, while RCB are way down in seventh position after sufffering their fifth defeat from seven games.
Earlier, captain captain Virat Kohli was once again the stand-out performer with an unbeaten 44-ball-68 to rally Royal Challengers Bengaluru to 175 for four.
It was a patchy batting performance from the hosts as Kohli's fourth half-century of the season ensured that they had some kind of a total on board, in the absence of the in-form AB de Villiers, who missed out because of fever.
Kohli's innings comprised of five fours and three sixes while Brendon McCullum contributed 38 off 28 balls.
Two of the three sixes struck by Kohli were pure delight. Both were hit off Andre Russell. With minimum backlift, Kohli whipped one on the blockhole into the long-on stands while the other was a flick over midwicket.
RCB's first 10 overs wasn't as productive as they lost three wickets for 75 runs. It was primarily due to Kohli that they managed another 100 runs in the back-10.
The slow start by RCB was one of the reasons for not getting the par-score of 200 as the first six overs in the Powerplay produced only 40 runs.
Put into bat, openers McCullum and Quinton de Kock (29 off 27 balls) put on 67 runs but consumed eight overs in the process.
The South African was scalped by Kuldeep Yadav with his first ball after the strategic break, caught in the deep by Shubman Gill.
Birthday boy Andre Russell's double strike in the 10th over left RCB in a mess as he got McCullum caught off Russell, while Manan Vohra was bowled for a golden duck.
Mandeep Singh (19) became Russell's third victim as he holed out to Shivam Mavi at deep midwicket.
There was no stopping Kohli, who went on the attack in the last few overs, hitting Russell for two sixes in the 18th over. Mitchell Johnson is also hit for a six each by Kohli and Colin de Grandhomme in the final over to help RCB finish on a high.
