Shane Warne blamed the top order of the Rajasthan Royals side which fell to a 27-run loss to Punjab in Cape Town.

Chasing 140 for victory, the defending champions got off to a poor start losing Swapnil Asnodkar, Graeme Smith, Robert Quiney and Dimitri Mascarenhas for just 27 runs in less than five overs.

They eventually finished on 112 for seven thanks to a 60-run partnership between Ravindra Jadeja (37) and Warne (34 not out), but the performance at the start of the chase left the Australian furious.

"I thought they bowled pretty well at the top," he said afterward. "We just haven't found the right combination.

"The blokes up the top aren't doing their job, so we're going to have a serious look at that for the next game. We can't keep doing that every time we play.

Irfan shines for Kings XI Punjab

"I think the bowlers and fielders are doing an excellent job, but the batting's not firing. It's up to them to start taking responsibility, so hopefully they'll come out and fire for us in the next game."

Warne also praised man-of-the-match Kumar Sangakkara and Irfan Pathan, who made 60 and 39 respectively to help Punjab to a competitive total.

He continued: "Once again our bowling and fielding was pretty good. They probably got 10-15 maybe extra, but you've got to say that was pretty well played to Sangakkara and Irfan.

"Still, 140 to chase, I thought if we got a half-decent start, we should probably get them, but unfortunately once again our top order failed."

Star pair

The Royals have now slipped to second bottom in the table, but Warne insists his side can reclaim their form from the inaugural IPL season, adding: "We can still be a force in the tournament. I just think that we need to start getting it right in those first six overs with the bat."

Punjab captain Yuvraj Singh was also full of praise for his star pair, who shared a 75-run stand to rescue their side from 48 for four.

He said: "After losing the wickets up front, I thought Sangakkara and Irfan batted really well and got us to a decent total that we could defend.

"It was good the way they batted because we needed a partnership at that time.

"After 10 overs we discussed how we were going to go about the 20 overs and the two of them got it right.

"We then backed that up with good bowling.

"The wicket surprised me a little bit. When I saw it this morning, I thought 160-170, but then after we batted I thought 140 was a good competitive total."

After starting the tournament with successive losses, Punjab have now won two in a row to jump to third in the table.

The skipper added: "We've now started to play good cricket after those two back-to-back losses. We've now got our combination right, we won two 20-over games and it's now looking good for us."