Gautam Gambhir played a captain's innings as Kolkata Knight Riders easily chased down 147 to beat Delhi Daredevils by six wickets in the Indian Premier League.
The Daredevils headed into Monday's contest in Delhi buoyed by back-to-back wins over Kings XI Punjab and Sunrisers Hyderabad.
However, the wheels came off against the defending champions as the likes of Umesh Yadav (2-18), Morne Morkel (2-30) and Piyush Chawla (2-27) had the Daredevils batsmen toiling - Angelo Mathews' 28 off 21 boosting the hosts to 146-8.
The tally was well short, though, as skipper Gambhir's measured knock of 60, which included eight boundaries, proved the catalyst for a victory that was wrapped up with 11 balls remaining.
Morkel made the breakthrough with just his second delivery when Mayank Agarwal (1) failed to deal with the South African's pace and top-edged to Yadav at long leg.
JP Duminy (5) saw Sunil Narine's (1-38) delivery squirm on to the wicket and when Shreyas Iyer (31) fell, the Daredevils were reeling on 58-3.
Manoj Tiwary (32) and Yuvraj Singh (21) steadied the ship with a fourth-wicket stand of 37, but the former's attempted pull off Morkel found Pathan at short midwicket.
Singh had seemingly set himself well and he smashed Morkel for six over midwicket. However, a lapse in concentration allowed Robin Uthappa to take a simple stumping and gifted Chawla his 100th IPL wicket.
With runs needed to boost the tally, Mathews played an entertaining cameo - including hitting 19 off Narine in an expensive penultimate over - but he fell in the last ball of the innings to fine catch from Uthappa off Yadav.
The Knight Riders suffered a double early blow in their chase when Uthappa (13) and Manish Pandey (0) both went in the fifth over.
Gambhir and Suryakumar Yadav (24) got the run-rate moving with a 48-run partnership, the latter hitting a big six off Duminy over long-off in the eight over.
Yadav went for 24 in the final ball of the 10th over, but Gambhir was calm and composed at the crease, finding the boundary with regularity - bringing up his 50 when he pulled Mathews for four.
Yusuf Pathan proved an able assistant with 40 off 26, including a monster 94 metre six off Imran Tahir that hit an upper tier roof.
Gambhir failed to see out the job when he inside edged Tahir onto the stumps, but Kolkata easily surpassed their target.