Kings XI Punjab plunged into a deeper crisis on Thursday, suffering their fifth loss in six games they have played so far.

Coached by Anil Kumble, Kings XI were thoroughly outplayed by Sunrisers Hyderabad, who won by 69 runs at the Dubai International Stadium. The David Warner-captained team rose to third in the standings with six points, while the Kings XI were rooted to the bottom.

Openers Warner (52) and Jonny Bairstow (97) first fired in unison for a 160-run stand to help Sunrisers put up 201/6 in 20 overs, and then their bowlers, led by Rashid Khan, bowled out Kings XI for 132 in 16.5 overs.

When Warner and Bairstow were going strong, the Sunrisers were looking good for a 220-plus total. They punished anything loose to register their fifth 100-plus stand together opening the innings in the IPL.

Warner hasn’t really been on fire in the past few matches, but he looked good on Thursday, getting his 46th half-century in the IPL. With four centuries to go with that, the Australian scored another ‘fifty’ of sorts.

But young leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi (3/29 off three overs) showed a lot of heart to remove both Warner and Bairstow in the 16th over that stymied the Sunrisers’ progress for the next few overs.

However, Kane Williamson (20 not out) unleashed a couple of blows in the last over of their innings to push the team total past the 200-mark.

In reply, Nicholas Pooran (77 off 37) produced a brilliant exhibition of six hitting, bringing up his maiden IPL half-century which was also the fastest in this edition. But the rest of the Kings XI batsmen failed to put up a fight as the left-handed batsman from the Caribbean waged a lone battle.

The Kings XI’s much dependable opening duo of captain KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal failed to deliver at a time their team needed them the most. While Mayank was run out after a misunderstanding, Rahul, who wasn’t looking too comfortable, holed out at deep square leg in the seventh over with only 58 on board.

The out-of-sorts Glenn Maxwell disappointed again and the Kings XI must decide now whether they should persist with him for another game or bench the Australian. Unfortunately, they couldn’t include Chris Gayle in the XI as he was down with food poisoning.

Pooran’s onslaught aside, the Sunrisers bowlers stuck to their line with Rashid (3/12) once again excelling, while Khaleel Ahmed (replacing Siddarth Kaul) and the impressive T. Natarajan took two wickets apiece as they finished the game with 19 balls still remaining.