ABU DHABI– Kieron Pol­lard tast­ed de­feat for the first time in 13 match­es as reign­ing In­di­an Pre­mier League (IPL) cham­pi­ons, Mum­bai In­di­ans, crashed to a five-wick­et de­feat to Chen­nai Su­per Kings in the tour­na­ment cur­tain-rais­er in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, on Sat­ur­day.

The West In­dies white-ball skip­per made just 18 off 14 balls bat­ting at num­ber six and it was left to Saurabh Ti­wary with 42 and Quin­ton de Kock with 33 to fire Mum­bai up to 162 for nine off their 20 overs at the Sheikh Za­yed Sta­di­um.

In re­ply, Su­per Kings with­out West In­dies all-rounder Dwayne Bra­vo chased down their tar­get with four balls to spare thanks to dash­ing half-cen­turies from Am­bati Rayudu (71) and Faf du Plessis (58 not out).

Pol­lard re­cent­ly over­saw Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers’ (TKR) his­toric cap­ture of a record fourth Caribbean Pre­mier League ti­tle when they played un­beat­en in 12 games in the show­piece which end­ed in T&T, ear­li­er this month.

His hopes of ex­tend­ing that un­beat­en streak were lift­ed when Shane Wat­son (4) and Mu­rali Vi­jay (1) per­ished cheap­ly as Mum­bai re­duced Su­per Kings to six for two at the end of the sec­ond over of their run chase.

But Rayudu punched half-dozen fours and three six­es in a 48-ball knock while South African du Plessis struck six fours off 44 de­liv­er­ies, the pair post­ing 115 for the third wick­et to put Su­per Kings in sight of the win.

Su­per Kings need­ed five from the last over and du Plessis lashed the first two de­liv­er­ies from left-arm pac­er Trent Boult for bound­aries.

Ear­li­er, Mum­bai ben­e­fit­ted from two part­ner­ships af­ter they were sent in, de Kock and Ro­hit Shar­ma (12) post­ing 46 for the first wick­et and Ti­wary and Suryaku­mar Ya­dav (17) adding a fur­ther 44 for the third wick­et.

Pol­lard, who ar­rived in the 15th over, lashed one four and a six be­fore falling to a catch at the wick­et off the im­pres­sive South African pac­er Lun­gi Ngi­di (3-38) at the start of the penul­ti­mate over.

CMC