AB de Villiers shines in Bangalore win over Pune

AB de Villiers smashed a 46-ball 83 to help Bangalore narrowly beat Pune by 13 runs in a high scoring clash in the Indian Twenty20 competition in Pune on Friday.

MS Dhoni, Pune's captain, won the toss and put Bangalore in to bat first, Thisara Perera - who ended with three wickets - dismissed opener KL Rahul in the fourth over of the match.

Pune looked to make more in roads in the powerful Bangalore batting line up, but de Villiers and Kohli refused to budge and added their third 100-plus run stand in four matches, adding a mammoth 155 runs - the highest partnership of the 2016 season - in the 15.5 overs they were together.

Kohli had already made his intentions clear and had thumped a six and two fours before Rahul's departure. De Villiers followed his captain's cue and found the fence from the third ball he faced. He hit his first six in the ninth over off Ankit Sharma, before lofting Murugan Ashwin for another two more sixes in his first over.

The Kohli-de Villiers combine added 50 runs from just 38 balls. De Villiers raced to his 50 from just 25 balls and had thumped four fours and three sixes in the process. While de Villiers found the boundary easily, Kohli struggled for fluency and scored 50 from 47 balls. Kohli in fact played out 17 of Bangalore' 28 dots, which incidentally was the joint-third least in an innings in the competition.

De Villiers and Kohli were dismissed from successive Perera deliveries in the 20th over, but the damage had already been done as they helped their side post a sizeable 185 in their 20 overs. In all, de Villiers had clobbered six fours and four sixes.

Pune lost three batsmen early, with opener Faf du Plessis and Steven Smith falling two-overs apart and Kevin Pietersen retiring hurt. Ajinkya Rahane was the stand-out performer with the bat and hit eight fours in his 46-ball 60. Dhoni and Perera provided the middle order stability but despite an impressive display, Pune managed just 172 in reply.

"It wasn't easy to get going. I maybe got away with a couple of easy boundaries. Both my sweeps didn't come off the middle, but went for six. But generally, I'm pleased with my performance. Their batting line-up was all class. Dhoni and Rahane took it deep, and we knew Thisara would keep us on our toes. He was striking it well. Happy that we crossed the line though," de Villiers said.