Twitter Reaction: South Africa beats India in a high-voltage warm-up game

The lucky fans in the packed Wankhede Stadium witnessed an epic match today between India and South Africa. The fixture was a warm-up game and had little importance. However, the regulation match turned out to be a treat for the fans as they enjoyed both sides smacking the ball to all corners in a high scoring match.

South Africa went to bat as a result of the mutual decision between both the skippers. They did not start very well, losing Hashim Amla and Faf du Plessis before the 4th over of the match. But, Quinton de Kock and JP Duminy then combined and fluently tonked the Indian bowlers. Both shared an entertaining 115 runs stand full of fireworks. De Kock eventually retired on 56 from 33 balls to make way for David Miller who played a brief attacking cameo of 18 runs from 11 balls. JP Duminy remained unbeaten at 67 runs from 44 balls. Rilee Rossouw and Chris Morris also came at the end and managed some crunchy shots to the fence. All these fiery batting performances enabled South Africa to touch 196/8 at the end of 20 overs.

Hardik Pandya (3/36) and Harbhajan Singh (0/27) were the pick of the bowlers today while Jasprit Bumrah (2/51) and Mohammad Shami (2/37) had off days and cost too many runs for India.

India, in reply, lost the important wickets of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli very early. However, Shikhar Dhawan (73 from 53 balls) again put a sturdy batting display and along with Suresh Raina (41 from 26 balls) kept the run rate in control, keeping India in the chase. Both eventually retired to bring the explosive pair of MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh on to the crease. The duo batted with intent and took the match till the last over. Eventually, the match boiled down to 14 from the last over with MS Dhoni on strike. Unfortunately, both the batsman could manage only ten runs off it as India lost the match by narrowly by 4 runs.

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