Paul Valthaty cracked the third highest century in the history of the Indian Premier League as the Kings XI Punjab upset defending champions Chennai in Mohali on Wednesday.
Chasing a formidable 189-run target in the wake of Subramaniam Badrinath and Murali Vijay's rescue act, the hosts remained in the hunt throughout thanks to Valthaty's controlled hitting.
While captain Adam Gilchrist (19), Shaun Marsh (12) and Sunny Singh (20) came out all guns blazing. only to perish to varying degrees of shoddy shot selection, the 25-year-old right-hander operated with aggressive calculation across the daunting chase.
Taking a particular liking to the full fodder coughed up by Albie Morkel, the worst bowler of the day by a long shot, and Chennai's plethora of substandard slow bowlers, the mature opener tucked into 19 fours and two sixes across his unbeaten 120-run blitzkrieg.
Where Morkel couldn't find a consistent length, Tom Southee failed to churn out a decent line and copped just as much stick as his fellow seamer, while senior spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Suraj Randiv had a match to forget on a track void of much turn.
Man of the Match Valthaty's 63-ball knock was a near chanceless affair, with visiting captain Mahendra Dhoni often dumbfounded by the centurion's ability to find the fence at near will.
The late loss of Abhishek Nayar for a golden duck provided a slight scare to the Kings XI Punjab camp, but with Dinesh Karthik - and his love of the reverse-sweep and midwicket fence in tow - coming to the party, Gilchrist's posse were able to seal the deal with five balls to spare.
Earlier Praveen Kumar took two wickets with the first two balls of the match, but that was as good as it got for the Kings XI Punjab's performance with the ball as the Super Kings recovered to post a formidable but ultimately vain 188 for four.
With Srikkanth Anirudha and Suresh Raina back in the hut for first-ball quackers, Badrinath (66 not out) and Vijay joined forces across a 124-run stand at a rate of 8.55 to the over for the third wicket.
While Vijay eventually succumbed to leg-spinner Piyush Chawla for 74 from 43 balls, Badrinath remained at the crease and duly took a back seat to the big-hitting expertise of captain Dhoni.
The cavalier right-hander showed no mercy, taking 22 runs from Kumar's last over, en route to a quickfire 43 from a mere 22 deliveries.
Wednesday's loss sees the title holders slump to sixth in the 10-team standings, while the Kings XI Punjab unit are now hovering at seventh.
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