West Indies Chris Gayle celebrates his century during the one-day international match against South Africa at Wanderers in Johannesburg yesterday. - Reuters JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, CMC:
IN A pulsating finale that featured the best and worst of the West Indies, South Africa sneaked home for a thrilling four-wicket victory with two balls to spare in the fifth one-day international yesterday.
A capacity 32,000 crowd at The Wanderers was taken through the gamut of emotions in a high-scoring duel that saw the hosts overcoming the visitors' formidable total of 304 for two to clinch the series by a final margin of 3-1.
This triumph followed the South Africans' 3-0 whipping of the Caribbean side in the Test series and, as in the longer version of the game, Jacques Kallis was again the hero.
The muscular right-handed batsman put the seal on an outstanding season of Tests and ODIs with an innings of 139 that took his team to the brink of victory after it seemed that it had left itself with too much to do over the final 15 overs.
Having compiled hundreds in all four Test matches on the way to an imposing tally of 712, Kallis finished the one-day series with a total of 361 runs at a staggering average of 180.50, his match-winning innings on the last day following unbeaten knocks of 109 in Cape Town and 95 at Centurion.
Inevitably, he took both the 'Man of the Match' and 'Man of the Series' honours.
His latest effort overshadowed a fine, unbeaten 152 by Chris Gayle, who contributed exactly half of the West Indies total and established an imposing foundation in an opening partnership of 193 with Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
Their efforts thoroughly vindicated Brian Lara's decision to bat first on winning the toss.
LATE ASSAULT BY POWELL
But even as they occupied the crease together from the first to the 39th over, they were never able to push the run-rate consistently up to five runs per over, and it was only a late assault spurred by a quickfire 49 not out by Ricardo Powell that produced 111 runs over the final 11 overs.
Gayle's eighth ODI century lacked much of his usual overpowering strokeplay as he seemed to be unwell. Despite his apparent lethargy, his innings was still compiled at almost a run-a-ball and was decorated with 12 fours and three sixes.
Recognising the need to accelerate, Chanderpaul perished on 85, swinging one of South African captain Graeme Smith's part-time off-breaks into the hands of Jacques Rudolph on the square-leg boundary.
The Guyanese had smashed the previous delivery over Rudolph's head for the only six of his innings, which occupied 114 deliveries and also included six fours.
For the first time in international matches on this tour, Lara strode to the crease at the fall of the first wicket, but failed to have the desired effect, flicking Lance Klusener to Makhaya Ntini on the square-leg boundary when he had reached just 11.
However, Powell was in his stride from the first delivery he faced, crashing four fours and two sixes in reaching within one run of a fifty off just 24 balls.
On an excellent batting pitch, the West Indies bowlers and fielders needed to be disciplined if the memorable triumph in Centurion three days earlier was to be followed by a series-tying victory. But they were let down in many areas, not least by the previously economical Corey Collymore, who was plundered for 83 runs off 10 overs even though he gave the tourists a good start when Herschelle Gibbs top-edged an attempted swing to leg and Ramnaresh Sarwan held the catch at short fine-leg to remove the dangerous opener for just 15.
Smith and Kallis then set South Africa firmly on course for their target in a 102-run second-wicket partnership that was ended by Gayle when the home team's captain tried to be too cheeky with his strokeplay and was bowled for 58.
The required run-rate started to climb as Boeta Dippenaar struggled to establish any sort of rhythm, although he added another 54 runs with the irresistible Kallis.
When Dippenaar hoisted Ryan Hurley to Ravi Rampaul at long-on to make the score 187 for three in the 36th over, Klusener was expected to come in at that stage to pick up the flagging tempo of the innings.
However the man who joined Kallis, Jacques Rudolph, filled the role admirably, making the most of a straightforward dropped chance by Mervyn Dillon at mid-off to crash 35 off 29 balls to leave the South Africans within 27 runs of victory with four overs left.
Kallis had already registered his 12th one-day hundred and was also stepping up the pace, but there was even more drama to come.
Klusener got off the mark with a boundary before Lara removed him with a stunning diving catch at short midwicket as the powerful left-hander drove at Collymore.
Rampaul, by a long way the pick of the bowlers, then responded to the enormous pressure of bowling the penultimate over by conceding just one run and claiming the key wicket of Kallis, who drove the seamer high to Chanderpaul on the cover boundary.
Rampaul had also accounted for Rudolph to another Chanderpaul boundary catch, but the 19-year-old was reduced to tears just moments later as two critical fielding errors by Hurley and Dillon in the final over eased South Africa's task of getting eight runs off the last six deliveries.
Shaun Pollock ended the match in style, lofting Gayle for six over extra-cover, leaving the West Indies to once again rue what could have been but for their patent lack of consistency on another foreign campaign.
.
