A touch of ‘Delhi Belly’ means the BlackCaps went into their Twenty20 warm up match against South Africa understrength, including Daniel Vettori and Tim Southee out with the bug.
The New Zealand side had just 11 players fit for the match as bowling coach Damien Wright forced to take the field as a substitute.
The Proteas won the match by nine runs despite a strong performance by captain Ross Taylor who scores a quick fire 75 from 42 to help New Zealand to 177 for 8, not enough to surpass South Africa’s toal of 186 for 6.
Earlier James Franklins (2/31) and fast bowler Adam Milne (2/26) were the best of the Kiwi bowlers.
The BlackCaps start their Twenty20 World Cup campaign against Bangladesh on Friday.
Meanwhile, Kamran Akmal hit six sixes and five fours in an entertaining knock of 92 not out as he guided Pakistan to a five-wicket win over India in a World Twenty20 warm-up match.
Akmal's 50-ball innings included an unbroken partnership of 95 runs with Shoaib Malik that salvaged Pakistan from 91-5 in 11 overs and helped the team pass a formidable 185-3 made by India in their 20 overs.
Offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin threatened to steal the game for India with four wickets but Akmal and Malik handled the pressure well to recover, making 37 not out.
India's in-form batsman Virat Kohli top-scored with an unbeaten 75 and Rohit Sharma assisted him with 56 as the pair added 127 runs for the third wicket after their captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and elected to bat at R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo.
Kohli faced 47 balls and hit seven boundaries and two sixes while Sharma's runs came off 40 balls including six boundaries and two sixes.
Pakistan offspinner Saeed Ajmal returned best figures of 2-22 in his four overs.
Pakistan started their chase well but lost three wickets in seven runs to be precariously placed on 91-5, needing to score nearly nine runs per over before Akmal and Malik combined. Ashwin returned 4-23 in his four wickets.
3 News/AP