England humbled in Twenty20 warm-up

England humbled in Twenty20 warm-up

It wouldn't be an England tour without a warm-up embarrassment and on cue, after two impressive 50-over displays, the tourists capitulated for a paltry 89 on a slow pitch at Bloemfontein to a strong South Africa A side. A four-wicket defeat is hardly ideal preparation four days before the opening international of the trip, but reinforces the notion that England's 20-over game is still some way off the pace.

Andrew Strauss had hoped the good work of recent days wouldn't unravel after passing over the captaincy to Paul Collingwood for the Twenty20 matches. After batting with freedom and confidence in their first two warm-up matches, England couldn't find any momentum on a stodgy surface and weren't helped by three comical run outs. They failed to use 15 of their allocated deliveries as the last six wickets fell in 26 balls.

Having assessed the surface the new ball was thrown to Graeme Swann and he responded with another impressive spell of 2 for 9 as South Africa A were made to work. Adil Rashid also collected a couple in an encouraging display, but Vaughn van Jaarsveld and Rory Kleinveldt ended any doubts over the result with some powerful hitting.

England won't read too much into the result - they have a history of recovering from such setbacks - and conditions in the highveld will be much different. However, if they cared to flick through the TV channels they would have come across pictures of South Africa wiping the floor with Zimbabwe at Centurion Park. This was a day where they were reminded how tough this tour will be.