Mumbai: India made an awesome attempt to overhaul South Africa’s tall score of 196 for eight, yet finally came up short by four runs to lose their ICC World T20 warm-up cricket game at the Wankhede Stadium here on Saturday.
Pursuing the 197-run target set by the Proteas, India recovered from a poor begin through a partnership of 94 runs between left-handers Shikhar Dhawan (73) and Suresh Raina (41). After both Dhawan and Raina left the field, retiring deliberately, captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (30 not out off 16 balls) and Yuvraj Singh (16 not out off 8) whittled down the objective from 43 in 18 balls to 14 in the last over before India wound up at 192 for three, to lose their first game after eight progressive wins.
Prior for South Africa, Chris Morris was tasked with protecting 14 runs off the last over against MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh, who are ostensibly the best completing pair in world cricket, and held his nerve to give the Proteas the win and a positive begin to preparations for the competition.
An eased Morris reviewed the last over, and trusts the match was a significant practice session for the squad in front of the competition opener against England on Friday.
“We have our plans to each batsman,” he explained. “We do a lot of studying behind the scenes so it was a nice practice run, also very nerve-wrecking. We know how dangerous MS Dhoni can be, I have played against him a few times and we know he can clear the boundary quite easily. It was good practice and I was just happy I could nail parts of what I wanted to do in that last over. I’m happy the result went in our favour but it could have gone either way.”
The other champion bowlers were Dale Steyn ( 1/36) and Kyle Abbott (1/32), who made great utilization of the seam-friendly conditions, while Imran Tahir (1/25) exceeded expectations with his solid consistency. Proteas captain, Faf du Plessis, highlighted the battles the bowlers have confronted while guarding aggregates in the last series against Australia, and would have been glad for the advancement appeared, despite the fact that there is still opportunity to get better.
Prior, JP Duminy top-scored with 67 off 44 balls to make a noteworthy come back to form, while Quinton de Kock proceeded with his purple patch to crush 56 off 33 balls before retiring out. The pair put on a 77-run third-wicket partnership, after the early departures of Hashim Amla and Du Plessis. Whatever is left of the line-up contributed with cameos to lift the Proteas to 196 after South Africa won the toss and chose to bat.
AB de Villiers and Kagiso Rabada were refreshed for the match, which additionally saw Aaron Phangiso bowl his first of international cricket subsequent to the change in accordance with his activity. South Africa play their second and last warm-up match against a local team on Tuesday at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai.
