ABU DHABI – West In­dies Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al cap­tain Kieron Pol­lard failed to daz­zle with the bat, but Rahul Tri­pathi and Venkatesh Iy­er did, and Kolkata Knight Rid­ers beat Mum­bai In­di­ans by sev­en wick­ets in the In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) on Thurs­day.

Pol­lard, eye­ing form and con­fi­dence be­fore the ICC Twen­ty20 World Cup from Oc­to­ber 17 to No­vem­ber 14 in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates and Oman, was run out for 21, af­ter Mum­bai were put in­to bat at the Za­yed Crick­et Sta­di­um and post­ed 155 for six from their 20 overs.

Iy­er scored his maid­en IPL half-cen­tu­ry of 53 and Tri­pathi slammed an un­beat­en 74 off 42 balls, as the Knight Rid­ers chased down the tar­get with 4.5 overs to spare.

Iy­er and Shub­man Gill gave Knight Rid­ers a fly­ing start be­fore the ir­re­press­ible Jasprit Bum­rah broke their stand in the third over.

Knight Rid­ers were 40 for one, but Tri­pathi joined Iy­er and made sure that their side did not lose any mo­men­tum in the chase.

The paid added 23 in the fi­nal three overs of the pow­er­play as Knight Rid­ers moved to 63 for one, and the big hit­ting did not stop there.

Iy­er and Tri­pathi con­tin­ued at­tack the Mum­bai bowlers, scor­ing 48 runs in the next four overs to take the Knight Rid­er to 111 for one af­ter 10 overs.

Both bats­men com­plet­ed their half-cen­turies and an 88-run stand be­fore Bum­rah re­moved Iy­er and Knight Rid­ers cap­tain Eoin Mor­gan, the Eng­land T20I cap­tain, and Tri­pathi took Knight Rid­ers over the fin­ish line.

Bum­rah end­ed with an ex­pen­sive 3-43 from his four overs.

Ear­li­er, South Africa wick­et­keep­er-bats­man Quin­ton de Kock and In­dia in­ter­na­tion­al Ro­hit Shar­ma gave Mum­bai a sol­id start of 78.

But Knight Rid­ers man­aged to break the open­ing stand when West In­dies spin­ner Sunil Nar­ine dis­missed Ro­hit in the 10th over.

Three overs lat­er, Mum­bai lost Suryaku­mar Ya­dav cheap­ly, but de Kock hit 55 from 42 balls be­fore he fell in the 15th over to keep them rolling.

Pol­lard was run out in the fi­nal over in the mad scram­ble for late runs for Mum­bai af­ter a quick­fire 30-run stand with Krunal Pandya.

Nar­ine was named Play­er-of-the-Match for a tidy spell of 1-20 from four overs and fel­low West In­di­an An­dre Rus­sell leaked 37 in three un­suc­cess­ful overs, but pac­ers Lock­ie Fer­gu­son and Prasid Kr­ish­na scalped two wick­ets each.

CMC