As South Africa’s spinners prepared to counter a formidable Indian line-up in the ICC World T20 semi-finals, they had a pleasant surprise at Wednesday’s nets session.
Legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne came over to hand them tips ahead of Friday’s second semi-final.
"We were all surprised to find him at the nets. May be he was getting bored at the hotel and came over to have a bowl," said Hashim Amla, the team's senior batsman.
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The former Australia ace spent more than an hour at the Proteas nets offering his expertise to the likes of Imran Tahir to get their act right against the in-form Indian top-order, comprising Virat Kohli and Yuvraj Singh.
South Africa’s media manager Lerato Malekutu said Warne's visit was a surprise for the team.
"We were all surprised to see him out here. He bowled six, seven balls. May be he was getting bored in his hotel room," she said.
It was around quarter to 11 in the morning when Warne dropped in at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium and his first question was, "Mate, are the South Africans done with their batting and bowling?"
After being told that they were still doing their fielding drills, he retired to the VIP lounge of the stadium.
Once the nets started, he stood behind the stumps watching the spinners with minute attention. He spoke with Tahir but he also watched J P Duminy bowl his off-breaks and left-arm slow bowler Aaron Phangiso roll his arm over.
He had a long chat with his old mate and rival Allan Donald, who is the South African bowling coach.
Later, Warne bowled a few deliveries to Quinton de Kock at the far nets. He flighted them and although De Kock was not troubled, he could not also get them away for big hits.
Twice he gave Warne the charge but checked his shot at the last moment to play copybook forward defensive strokes.
By the time, he finished, the local media had arrived and Warne evaded any queries as to what he was doing and had to use his body feint to dodge one of the cameraman, who was taking his shots from the front.
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