The whole cricketing fraternity was eagerly awaiting the return of Royal Challengers Bangalore batsmanAB de Villiers in the tenth edition of the Indian Premier League and the Protea superstar lived up to all the expectations.

In his very match of the tournament, the explosive batsman gave the fans a glimpse of his unbelievable potentials with the willow. On a two-paced pitch where his batting partners were struggling even to time the ball against the Kings XI Punjab bowlers, de Villiers looked at his devastating best and smashed 89 off just 46 deliveries to help his team recover from a shaky start and post a decent total of 148 for 4.

With wickets falling at the other end, de Villiers did not take his chances early on and looked more than happy to play cautiously. But once the slog overs arrived, the right-handed batsman turned himself into the hard-hitting monster that has made him arguably the most dangerous batsman in the world. He completed his fifty on the last ball of the seventeenth over by hitting a Marcus Stoinis delivery for a maximum. He hit a six in the 18th over also but the real carnage began from the penultimate over. In the 19th over bowled by Sandeep Sharma, de Villiers hit two sixes to take his tally to 7 maximums for the night. But the best of the lot was yet to come. In the final over, Mohit Sharma managed to keep de Villiers and his partner Stuart Bunny under check, conceding only 2 runs including a rare dot delivery to de Villiers. But the South Africa batsman turned on the heat on the final two balls. He sent the fifth ball of the over the long-off fence before hitting the final ball of the night for the biggest six of the night.

Sharma bowled one onto the stumps and de Villiers sat down on his knees to send the ball out of the park and by the time the dust had settled the ball had travelled a mind-boggling 102 metres.

Here is a clip of his stunning knock:

Meanwhile, de Villiers’ heroic knock went in vain as Kings XI Punjab chased down the total inside 15 overs.