Royal Challengers Bangalore gave Kolkata Knight Riders "a freebie" on Wednesday evening, and "deserved to lose" in any case their lapses within the subject, Virat Kohli, standing in as captain rather than Faf du Plessis, stated after the 21-run defeat at residence in Bengaluru.

"To be honest, we handed over the game to them," Kohli informed the host broadcaster after the match. "We deserved to lose because we weren't professional enough in the field. The bowlers hit decent areas, but we didn't hold on to our chances. That's what you call a freebie in T20 cricket and we literally handed them a victory, which for me is not ideal because we take pride in the way we play and tonight we weren't up to standard and something we are not shy to admit.

"[There were] a number of cases the place we did not capitalise throughout crunch moments. In the sector, there was a interval of four-five overs the place we dropped the possibilities and that prices us about 25-30 runs ultimately."

Rana hit two sixes off Harshal in the next over and closed the following over, the 17th, with two fours and a six off Vyshak. RCB ended up conceding 50 off the last four overs that helped KKR get to 200.

RCB then lost three wickets - that of Faf du Plessis, Shahbaz Ahmed and Glenn Maxwell - inside the powerplay in their chase despite scoring 58. Kohli then hit his fifth half-century this season and kept RCB in the game with a 55-run stand with Mahipal Lomror. But the pair fell in quick succession and that derailed the chase.

"With the bat, we set ourselves up very well after which [there were] so many smooth dismissals," Kohli said. "Balls which aren't wicket-taking balls however we ended up hitting it to fielders about four-five occasions within the innings. These are a number of the smooth performs in cricket which you need to keep away from as a workforce. So while you do six-seven of these on an evening, clearly you will be on the shedding facet.

"Even after losing wickets as well, one partnership brought us back in the game. We were one more partnership away from getting close to chasing that [target] down. We just need to identify things that did not go right tonight and not give soft plays to the opposition."