World Cup minnows Ireland gave South Africa a major scare before the one-day game's top-ranked side recovered to win by 35 runs in the Trinidad warm-up.
Trent Johnston and Dave Langford-Smith took three wickets each to reduce South Africa to 66-7 and Mark Boucher was then dismissed with the score on 91.
However, Andrew Hall's unbeaten 67 pushed South Africa up to 192 all out.
Ireland's run chase started well but they collapsed from 139-4 to 157 all out, with Charl Langeveldt taking 4-32.
But disciplined bowling from Ireland, with Langford-Smith and Johnston always a threat, stunned the South Africans before their late recovery.
Johnston finished with 4-40 and Langford-Smith took 3-30 against the second favourites for the tournament, and the team officially ranked number one in the world.
Until Hall's timely intervention a score under 100 looked on the cards, which would have been a major shock for a team threatening Australia's status as tournament favourites.
Hall was batting down at number nine, but received intelligent support from Robin Peterson (29) in a well-paced recovery from the Proteas.
Ireland's innings received notable contributions from Andre Botha (40), William Porterfield (37) and Kevin O'Brien (33).
But none of the lower order were able to stay with O'Brien as South Africa, whose attack was lacking Makhaya Ntini, nonetheless showed enough nous to get them home.
O'Brien was eventually ninth man out with numbers seven to 11 almost totally failing to contribute.
Langeveldt was in form at the death and ended the innings with the wicket of Paul Mooney, lbw for a duck.
Hall underlined his value to South Africa's cause by following up his batting heroics with figures of 3-30.
Ireland play a second warm-up fixture against Canada on Thursday before beginning their campaign proper against Zimbabwe in Jamaica on 15 March.
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