Debutant Venkatesh Iyer and Rahul Tripathi scored sparkling half centuries as Kolkata Knight Riders thumped the Mumbai Indians by seven wickets at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.
After being asked to bat by KKR skipper Eoin Morgan, MI opening pair of Quinton de Kock and Rohit Sharma got their team off to a fantastic start.
The pair added 78 runs for the opening wicket before Sunil Narine provided the much needed breakthrough by dismissing Rohit caught at long on by Shubman Gill for 33.
Suryakumar Yadav fell cheaply as he edged a Prasidh Krishna delivery to Dinesh Karthik behind the stumps.
De Kock mistimed a slower ball from Krishna to Narine at midwicket for a well made 55.
Kieron Pollard in the end scored a 15 ball-21 to take Mumbai to a competitive score of 155/6 in their allotted 20 overs.
Lockie Ferguson and Prasidh Krishna bagged 2 wickets each, while Narine claimed a solitary wicket.
Chasing 156, Knight Riders openers Shubman Gill and Venkatesh Iyer got their their side of to a flying start. The duo added 40 runs for the opening stand before the former was bowled by Jasprit Bumrah for 13.
Iyer along with Rahul Tripathi added 88 runs for the second wicket before the southpaw was bowled by a slower delivery from Bumrah for 53.
Nitish Rana hit the winning runs to take his side to a comprehensive 7 wicket win. Tripathi remained unbeaten on 74. His knock came off 42 balls with 8 fours and 3 sixes.
For Mumbai Indians Jasprit Bumrah ended up with figures of 3/43.
Sunil Narine was declared the Man of the Match.
Royal Challengers Bangalore will take on Chennai Super Kings at Sharjah on 24 September, Friday.