Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Virat Kohli took the blame for his team's 97-run thrashing by Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League in Dubai.

Without hesitation, Kohli took the blame for dropping Kings XI Punjab skipper KL Rahul twice, which contributed significantly to their defeat on Thursday.

Kohli felt had he not dropped two catches off the blade of Rahul, who remained unbeaten on 132, KXIP would not have been able to go past the 200-run mark.

"I have to stand in front and take the brunt of it, not the best day in the office, couple of important chances off KL when he was set and that cost us 35-40 runs at a later stage. 

"Maybe if we restricted them to 180 we wouldn't have been under pressure from ball one of the chase," said Kohli at the post-match presentation.

KXIP posted 206 for three and RCB were bundled out for 109 in 17 overs.

"We know exactly where we went wrong and I have to put my hand up and say a couple of important chances went down. There are days when these kind of things happen on the cricket field, they happen and we have to accept them.

"We have had a good game (against Sunrisers Hyderabad), we have had a bad game and now it is time to move on and learn from the mistakes we made," said Kohli.

On sending the young Josh Philippe ahead of himself at number 3, Kohli said: "He has batted at the top of the order for Western Australia and done well in the BBL as well, early days in the tournament so we thought we will maximise his ability and see how we go from there on. We thought we will give ourselves a bit of depth in the middle overs." 

The Australian wicketkeeper-batsman had batted in the middle-order in RCB's first game against Sunrisers.

RCB next play defending champions Mumbai Indians in Dubai on September 28.