23 April,2016 11:58 PM IST | | Agencies
Captain Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers smashed brisk half centuries to guide Royal Challengers Bangalore to a well-deserved 13-run win over Rising Pune Supergiants in their Indian Premier League match on Friday
It was a batting feast at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune on Friday.
First it was AB de Villiers (83) and Virat Kohli (80) that helped Royal Challengers Bangalore post 185-3 in their 20 overs. Then Ajinkya Rahane's 60 and MS Dhoni's 41 made the contest interesting for Rising Pune Supergiants, who played their first home match of the Indian Premier League-9.
A late surge from Thisara Perera (13-ball 34) and Rajat Bhatia (11-ball 21) was not enough to see the Pune team through as the hosts slumped to a 13-run defeat.
Pune suffered a couple of major blows at the start of their chase with Faf du Plessis dismissed for two and Kevin Pietersen (0) retired hurt after twisting his ankle while taking a run. However, skipper MS Dhoni and Ajinkya Rahane 91-run third wicket partnership almost looked like taking the game away from RCB.
Tabraiz impresses
South Africa's chinaman bowler Tabraiz Shamsi, who replaced injured Samuel Badree, impressed with figures of 4-0-36-1 on his RCB debut, claiming the big wicket of Rahane, who was done in by a sliding delivery that went past his wild swing only to be stumped.
Dhoni's departure in the next over was a big moment in the match which tilted in RCB's favour. Dhoni hit medium-pacer Harshal Patel as hard and flat he could, but a brilliant, running catch by de Villiers at the long off boundary brought about the Pune skipper's dismissal.
Earlier, put into bat, Bangalore got off a slow start, losing opener KL Rahul (7) in the fourth over to put a breaks on the scoring.
But his opening partner Kohli and de Villiers kept the scoreboard ticking, sneaking in with ones, twos to post 48-1 after completion of the powerplay.
Soon after the powerplay, the in-form duo unleashed their pyrotechnics to smash boundaries and sixes at regular intervals without losing any wickets to take team to 97-1 in 11 overs that set up the stage for yet another big score.
Kohli and de Villiers made it look simple as the Indian and South African pair brought up their 100-run partnership for the second wicket in just 69 balls and helped their team reach 128-1 in 15 overs.
Kohli got a life in the 16th over while batting on 49. The duo put on 155-run partnership for the second wicket to take team to a competitive total, before Kohli and De Villiers were dismissed in successive balls in 20th over.
