AB de Villiers' 35-ball 64 proves decisive as Bangalore beat Punjab

AB de Villiers scored a quick fire 35-ball 64 that helped Bangalore narrowly edge out Punjab by one run in their Indian Twenty20 league encounter played in Chandigarh on Monday.

Bangalore, with only three wins from eight matches, needed to outplay Punjab in their bid to improve their standing in the points table. Bangalore's openers, Virat Kohli and KL Rahul, added 63 runs, before the duo departed, two balls apart, in the eighth over; and Shane Watson fell soon after for just one.

The collapse brought de Villiers and Sachin Baby together and the duo set about rebuilding the innings. De Villiers, the aggressor, plundered 61 runs of the 88-run stand with Baby for the fourth wicket. His innings was punctuated with powerful drives and improvised sweeps.

The South African brought up his 50 from just 30 balls, but he fell for 64, just as he looked to inject more venom into the onslaught. In all, de Villiers had clobbered five fours and two sixes in his match-winning knock. His innings helped Bangalore post 175, which is their ninth successive 170-plus total this season.

Punjab's openers, Vijay and Hashim Amla, got their side off to a strong start and thumped a boundary off every over in the Powerplay except the first. Amla eventually holed out to midwicket in the sixth over, off a back-of-a-length ball from Watson.

Vijay, faced with a mounting asking rate, ensured Punjab stayed in the chase with frequent boundaries. He struck 12 fours and one six in his 57-ball 89, but he fell in the 18th over to Watson. Marcus Stoinis and Farhaan Behardien tried to guide their side home but failed as Punjab fell one-run short in the chase.

"Two points in the bag, they feel as sweet as the 50-run win in the first game. Glad to cross the line. It was really tense in the end, I would credit Murali Vijay, the way he was batting, the wicket wasn't that easy to bat on. He batted with a lot of composure, ran lots of twos," Kohli said.

"KL was going well, so I thought, just hang in there, play the anchor role. Losing two wickets in an over was criminal. You need world-class players to step up, and AB de Villiers did it for us. No one else would have been able to execute some of the shots he played. Every ball matters in this format. You can't keep thinking about what has gone wrong before that ball. Credit to Chris Jordan, and the way he kept his composure in the last two balls and finished it for us."