After being put in to bat, Kolkata Knight Riders were buoyed by a 57-run opening stand between Gautam Gambhir (31) and Robin Uthappa (30).
Karn Sharma accounted for the wickets of the openers and caused a middle-order collapse.
Eoin Morgan and Hanuma Vihari tried to complete a rally catch in the deep, but failed.
Manish Pandey scored 33 off 26 balls before he was run-out in the 14th over.
The wicket of Ryan Ten Doeschate by Moises Henriques reduced KKR to 111 for 5 as the home team lost four wickets in the space of 30 runs.
Yusuf Pathan hit some lusty blows in the slog overs to take his team to 167 for 7 by scoring 30 off just 19 balls.
Sunrisers Hyderabad were rocked early in their chase of 168 with Umesh Yadav cleaning up David Warner and Naman Ojha in the first over.
After the departure of Shikhar Dhawan for 15, the run-out of Eoin Morgan in the ninth over further pegged back SRH.
Moises Henriques put up a brief resistance and scored 41 off 33 balls before he perished in the 15th over off the bowling off Brad Hogg as SRH slumped to 81 for 7.
With three huge sixes, Karn Sharma reduced the margin of defeat and scored 32 off 20 balls, but his team slumped to a 35-run defeat.