Kochi, April 10 (IANS) A.B. de Villiers smashed an unbeaten 54 off 40 balls as Royal Challengers Bangalore coasted to a six wicket victory over Kochi Tuskers in the Indian Premier League here Saturday.
Chasing a victory target of 162 runs, Royal Challengers completed the chase in 18.4 overs spoiling the party of the home crowd who packed the stands to see the first match of local team Kochi Tuskers.
Kochi Tuskers,however, gave a good account of themselves and competed well.
They scored a competitive total (161/5) on a sporting track that had pace and bounce, courtsey Brendon McCullum (45) and V.V.S. Laxman's (36) explosive opening stand.
While chasing, Royal Challengers lost explosive opener Tillakaratne Dilshan cheaply with local boy S.Sreesanth snaring the Sri Lankan star.
Young Mayank Agarwal, however, showed guts and talent as he made a nerveless 33 with two fours and two sixes.
Agarwal put on 41 runs with Virat Kohli (23) in quick time and then added 37 runs with De Villiers.
The Royal Challengers innings then revolved around De Villiers, who along with big-hitter Saurabh Tiwari kept the team in the hunt adding 52 runs for the fourth wicket.
They took calculative risks with Muttiah Muralitharan and Vinay Kumar bowling probing spells, but never lost sight of the target.
Tiwary holed out in the deep trying to force the pace off Raiphi Gomez in the 18th over.
But De Villiers struck three sixes in the same over, two successive strikes after Tiwary's dismissal that brought the equation down to 13 from 12 balls.
Asad Pathan then took the team home with a flurry of fours and chose Vinay Kumar for the treatment.
Earlier, Kochi Tuskers decided to bat and were given a smashing start by McCullum and Laxman.
The duo blasted 80 runs in nine overs with the home crowd roaring for every strike.
They cared least about the reputation of the bowlers like Zaheer Khan, Dirk Nannes and Daniel Vettori.
McCullum struck four fours and two sixes while the stylish Laxman was not to be left behind and hit two fours and two sixes.
Royal Challengers, however, fought back in the middle overs after dismissing the openers. After that Brad Hodge (27) and Ravindra Jadeja (23 not out) steered Kochi's innings