King's XI Punjab finally got some points in this year's edition of the Indian Premier League, beating Rising Pune Supergiants by six wickets in Mohali on Sunday.

Pune skipper MS Dhoni won the toss and opted to bat first on what looked like a wicket that had some runs in it. However, the visitors could never really get going. But for a 63-run fourth-wicket partnership between Faf du Plessis (67 off 53 balls) and Steve Smith (38 off 26 balls), none of their batsmen managed to last long in Mohali's soaring heat. When du Plessis and Smith were together, it did seem for a while that Punjab would manage a score upwards of 160, but some brilliant death bowling from Mohit Sharma (3/23) restricted them to an under-par 152/7.

Manan Vohra and Murli Vijay started briskly for Punjab, and raced to 71/0 in the first ten overs. From then on, it looked like Punjab's game to lose. However, Vohra got out to an unnecessary sweep shot in the 13th over, Shaun Marsh and Murli Vijay followed him back to the pavilion a few overs later and Daniel Miller perished shortly after. With Punjab looking shaky, Glen Maxwell decided to put any fears to rest, hitting a powerful 32 off 14 balls to take them to victory with eight balls to spare. Among Pune's bowlers, Ravichandran Ashwin picked up three wickets keeping his team in the hunt, while Ankit Sharma ended up with figures of 1-27.