Despite a superb unbeaten knock and three wickets from Jason Holder the Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday lost by ive runs to Punjab Kings, who propelled themselves back into Indian Premier League play-off contention with the victory.

In a low-scoring match between the IPL’s bottom two sides, Jason Holder’s 47 not out was not enough for the Sunrisers to claim just a second win of the season.

“Tough loss. Halfway we were in the game. Left a little bit too much in the back end to do,” said the former West Indies captain, who snared three wickets when the Kings batted.

“It was good to get a good start.”

After a slow start, Holder, the Man of the Match, hit five sixes as he tried to get Sunrisers over the line.

“I just wanted to give myself a chance and strike well. Obviously, we have five games left and these are important games for us. The fans are always behind us, so got to play for them.”

Aiden Markram (27) top scored for Punjab, with captain KL Rahul (21) the only other player to knock off over 20 runs.

Holder was crucial to keeping Punjab to 125-7, as he took three wickets for 19 runs from his four overs, yet Mohammed Shami took the huge wickets of David Warner and Kane Williamson in his first two overs to deal the Sunrisers a blow.

The Sunrisers were reduced to just 20 runs in the Powerplay, the lowest total in their IPL history, and despite Holder’s unbeaten stand, which included five sixes, they did not have enough to get over the line.

Punjab’s win takes them onto eight points, level with three other teams all hunting a play-off spot.

The Sunrisers’ confidence was knocked early by Shami (2-14), as he dismissed Warner (2) and Williamson (1) to stifle the chase before it had even got started.

Ravi Bishnoi then added three wickets for just 24 runs to apply further pressure, skittling through Hyderabad’s middle order.

Batting for the Kings, Chris Gayle and Nicholas Pooran failed to impact the game with scores of 14 and 8, respectively.