ABU DHABI – West In­dies white-ball cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard crossed a per­son­al mile­stone and had a small hand in the fi­nal push for vic­to­ry when Mum­bai In­di­ans re­turned to win­ning ways with a six-wick­et win over Pun­jab Kings in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) on Tues­day.

Pol­lard struck a four and a six in 15 not out, as Mum­bai chased down a tar­get of 136 in overs to col­lect two points and strength­en their play­off chances.

Mum­bai were dealt with two big blows when pac­er Ravi Bish­noi had Ro­hit Shar­ma caught at mid-on for eight and bowled Suryaku­mar Ya­dav for a first-ball duck in the fourth over.

Mum­bai were 16 for two, but Quin­ton de Kock and Saurabh Ti­wary start­ed to re­build the in­nings. The pair kept the score­card tick­ing and added a vi­tal 45.

Mo­ham­mad Sha­mi bowled de Kock for 27 in the 10th over, but Ti­wary con­tin­ued his good work and with Hardik Pandya took Mum­bai past 90.

Ti­wary fell for 45 caught be­hind to Nathan in the 16th over, bring­ing Pol­lard to the crease.

Pol­lard and Hardik ad­vanced Mum­bai’s cause with a few lusty blows, set­ting up­on Ar­shdeep Singh and Sha­mi in the clos­ing overs to take their side over the line.

Ear­li­er, Pun­jab were kept un­der a tight rein, as Mum­bai bowled with dis­ci­pline in the pow­er­play and man­aged to strike in the sixth over, when Krunal Pandya got Man­deep Singh lbw for 15.

Pol­lard land­ed the mas­sive blows in the sev­enth over, how­ev­er, when he con­demned out-of-form West In­dies team­mate Chris Gayle to an­oth­er bat­ting fail­ure, hav­ing caught at long-off for one and Pun­jab cap­tain KL Rahul caught at short fine leg for 21 for his 300th wick­et in all Twen­ty20s.

Jasprit Bum­rah then got the bet­ter of an lbw ver­dict to re­move West In­dies left-han­der Nicholas Pooran for two and Pun­jab were reel­ing on 48 for four in the eighth over.

Aiden Markram and Deep­ak Hoo­da added 61 for the fifth wick­et to push Pun­jab past 100, but the Kings could not fin­ish strong­ly and were lim­it­ed to 135 for six.

Brief scores: Pun­jab Kings135/6 in 20 overs (Aiden Markram 42, Deep­ak Hoo­da 28; Kieron Pol­lard 2-8, Jasprit Bum­rah 2-24)lost to Mum­bai In­di­ans 137/4 in 19 overs (Saurabh Ti­wary 45, Hardik Pandya 40*; Ravi Bish­noi 2-25) by 6 wick­ets.

(CMC)

<Del­hi’s IPL play­off berth de­layed by loss to Kolkata>

SHAR­JAH, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (AP) — Del­hi Cap­i­tals was de­layed from claim­ing a play­off berth in the In­di­an Pre­mier League af­ter los­ing to Kolkata Knight Rid­ers by three wick­ets on Tues­day.

Del­hi could have ad­vanced with a win and re­mained sec­ond over­all. Kolkata was fourth af­ter a third win in its last four games. Both teams have three games re­main­ing.

Lat­er, Mum­bai In­di­ans al­so joined the race for the play­offs with a six-wick­et vic­to­ry over Pun­jab Kings. Mum­bai has 10 points af­ter 11 games but is just be­hind Kolkata on net run-rate.

Kolkata skip­per Eoin Mor­gan read the slow pitch well af­ter win­ning the toss and Del­hi was re­strict­ed to 127-9. Spin­ners Sunil Nar­ine (2-18) and Venkatesh Iy­er (2-29) led the at­tack.

Kolkata won by reach­ing 130-7 in 18.2 overs. Ni­tish Rana made an un­beat­en 37 off 27 balls, but it was the low­er or­der which starred, es­pe­cial­ly Sunil Nar­ine, who took 21 runs from one Kag­iso Raba­da over.