Indore: Glenn Maxwell smashed an unbeaten 44 off 20 balls as Kings XI Punjab defeated Rising Pune Supergiant by six wickets in their Indian Premier League opener here on Saturday.
Kings XI made short work of the 164-run target as Maxwell and David Miller (30 not out off 27 balls) took them home with an over to spare.
Maxwell's fireworks came after Ben Stokes led Rising Pune Supergiant's recovery with a blistering 50 off 32 balls, helping his team post 163 for six.
With the win, Kings XI have begun the competition on a promising note after finishing at the bottom in the previous two editions.
Pune had beaten Mumbai India in their tournament opener on Thursday.
Riding on a disciplined bowling effort, Kings XI Punjab restricted Rising Pune Supergiant to 163/6.
Pune were rescued by the heroics of their English import Stokes, who made 50 off 32 balls, and Manoj Tiwary, who remained unbeaten on 40 off 23 deliveries.
Unlike their previous outing against the Mumbai Indians, Pune were off to a dismal start, losing opener Mayank Agarwal (0) in the very first over and then going without a boundary for the next two overs.
Agarwal was cleaned up by an inswinger from medium-pacer Sandeep Sharma, who became the joint-most wicket-taker with Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Sunrisers Hyderabad), to take 31 scalps in the powerplay overs.
Pune would have suffered another casualty had Manan Vohra latched on to a top edge from Ajinkya Rahane (19) off the second ball of the fourth over from Mohit Sharma.
Rahane managed to break the shackles with a six and a four before in-form skipper Steve Smith (26) used the fielding restrictions to full advantage, by striking two consecutive fours in the next over from Sandeep.
Sensing danger, Punjab skipper Glenn Maxwell threw the ball to his latest addition, Tamil Nadu left-arm medium-pacer T. Natarajan, who responded immediately by picking Rahane off his second ball.
Rahane, who blasted 60 in the previous match, wanted to slice Natarajan's full delivery over the cover boundary but only ended in hitting it straight to Marcus Stoinis at sweeper cover.
One over later, Stonis added to Pune's misery with the key wicket of Smith, who holed out to Vohra at deep square. Smith's 27-ball knock was laced with three boundaries.
Struggling at 49/3, former Pune skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (5) was joined by all-rounder Stokes and the duo put on 22 runs before rookie left-arm spinner Swapnil Singh got the back of the Ranchi stumper with a simple return catch, which he managed to hold on in the fourth attempt.
With Pune at 71/4, Stokes lived up to his billing of being the costliest buy in this year's IPL auctions. After getting a feel of the wicket, the southpaw used the long handle quite well to spank left-arm spinner Axar Patel for a four and a six off consecutive deliveries.
Joined by the in-form Manoj Tiwary (40 not out), Stokes added 61 runs for the fifth wicket stand.
Axar Patel ended Stokes' resistance with a simple return catch off his own ball. Daniel Christian (17) and Tiwary threw caution to the wind as Pune scored 30 runs from the last two overs to take the score to 163.