5 memorable moments from the Royal Challengers Bangalore-Rising Pune Supergiants match that don't fade away

In an IPL that has largely seen one-sided affairs, Bangalore and Pune played out a thriller. The match, although didn't go into the last ball, but a good fightback by the home team gave the Royal Challengers a scare.

RCB have the best batting in the tournament and they showed it once again. Only two players got a score of more than 10 runs—and that was enough to take them to a great score of 185. Kohli and De Villiers scored 80 and 83 respectively and once again consolidated their superiority over the rest.

In response, Dhoni’s men could muster up 172 after some good batting from Ajinkya Rahane and some terrific late hitting from Thisara Perera. This is their 3rd loss in a row and Dhoni now finds himself in a position he has never been in before.

There were several memorable moments from the match that don't fade away, quite like the Axe Signature range of body perfumes. Here are 5 of the best:

De Villiers’ superhuman feats

Well they say AB de Villiers isn't human. After every match, he keeps on proving this. Tonight as well, he made fans think that the man from South Africa may be a mutant.

We have honestly run out of superlatives to describe this man, so we will do something anticlimactic: we will describe his innings in the banalest way possible.

He played 46 deliveries and a mammoth 83 runs off it. His innings was constructed with boundaries from sweeps and reverse-sweeps and some superb running between the wickets that kept the scoreboard ticking while helping with…

Kohli’s conversion from struggle to blast

It is not often that you see Virat Kohli reach 50 runs after playing 47 balls—that is just too slow for him. However, on a patch where the ball did tricks when dropped at the right pace, he found it hard to speed up his innings in the way that he usually does.

But he didn’t stop, he didn’t lose heart—he kept digging and, in the end, luck favoured him.

Ravi Ashwin has never been able to get the wicket of the talented Indian batsman. Today, he came the closest, but Ankit Sharma dropped a simple catch to deny the spinner that honour.

And Kohli took full advantage of it by accelerating in the death overs. Ultimately, he scored 80 in 61 ball—which included 29 runs in the last 11 balls of his innings.

Kohli’s modesty

And to top off such a fantastic innings, he iced with the cream of modesty. For many, he is the best batsman in the world.

And why not? He has scored so many runs in all formats of the game that it is hard not to acknowledge him as the greatest of this era. However, if you ask him who the batsman of this era is, he will say AB De Villiers.

The IPL isn’t 2 weeks old yet and he has already mentioned the South African as the best batsman in the world three times. Such is his respect for ABD that he never lets go of an opportunity to heap praises on his Bangalore teammate.

And today, during the mid-innings and the post match interview, he did just the same when he said, “AB de Villiers is the best batsman in the world.”

Rahane’s start

Ajinkya Rahane is a poor soul for he can never please some critics. They say that in T20s, he is the worst player to have in your team because of his slow approach while batting.

However, there are times when he bats at a strike rate of over 130—and yet he gets criticised.

It won’t be far-fetched to claim that if he scored a century of 50 balls in the IPL, his critics would blame him for not getting it in 30 or that someone else would definitely have in place of him.

Today was one of those days where we got quick runs. He scored 60 runs in 46 balls on a track where the others perished quickly. He stabilised his team's innings and set the perfect platform for a...

Perera blast

This game was going towards a one-sided affair. However, a blast from Thisara Perera ensured the visitors were made to work for their win.

He is the only active Sri Lankan in the IPL if you don’t consider the currently injured Lasith Malinga. And today he showed just why.

The game was dead, but he brought it back to life with his 13-ball 34—an innings that made the Pune fans hope a little bit. In the end, he couldn’t carry his onslaught till the end as he was stopped by the experienced Shane Watson.

Nonetheless, it was a great innings that gave Pune something to cheer.