Chris Gayle blew away Zim-babwe with the two distinctly different sides of his immense cricketing talent in the fifth and final one-day international here yesterday.
His all-round show featured the double for four wickets for 24 from 10 overs of tame off-spin followed by a brutal, unbeaten 112 from 75 balls.
It earned the West Indies an overwhelming victory by eight wickets, with 24.2 overs to spare, completing their first leg of their southern African tour with the satisfaction of both available trophies.
It secured the ODI series 3-2 to add to the earlier retention of the Clive Lloyd Trophy through the win in the second Test and the great escape in the drawn first.
If the outcome could not hide known weaknesses that have remained in both forms of the game, it makes for a favourable departure for South Africa this afternoon for the second, tougher assignment ahead.
The West Indies had fallen behind 2-1 in the ODIs through their own insipid cricket in the second and third matches. The reversals Saturday and yesterday were brought about by a change to the aggressive approach with which they are always more comfortable.
In the deciding encounter yesterday, Gayle first killed the Zimbab-weans softly with his amiable, right-arm bowling that reduced them from the promise of 107 for two in the 23rd over to 196 all out in the 48th.
The tall Jamaican followed with the more familiar power of his left-handed batting that hustled the West Indies to their goal with staggering ease.
No one in contemporary cricket hits the ball harder and his array of awesome strokes in all directions included a couple of sixes and 17 fours.
A measure of his dominance was that Brian Lara's share of their second wicket partnership of 137 off 104 balls was 41 to his 85.
It was his second hundred of the series that he began with an unbeaten 163 and his seventh ODI hundred.
It brought his aggregate to 385 at an average of 128.33 and a strike rate of 102 runs per 100 balls. His overall boundary count was seven sixes and 51 fours.
These are breathtaking figures, clearly enough to earn him the Man of the Series award to add to his second claim as Man of the Match.
They represented a significant turnaround. In the two preceding Tests, Gayle had been a shadow of the batsman who emerged over the past five matches, scraping together 74 tentative runs in four innings.
On a cool, overcast morning, Zimbabwean captain Heath Streak altered his strategy of the previous day and chose to bat.
Although the same pitch, it had been close shaved of grass and Saturday's destroyer Fidel Edwards soon discovered, as he will throughout his career, just how fickle a game cricket can be.
As unplayable as a fast bowler gets less than 24 hours earlier, he found none of the late outswing and bounce he had exploited so lethally.
He was taken for three fours in one over by Barney Rogers, the young left-hander whose middle stump he had plucked out first ball on Saturday, and had yielded 36, among them seven wides, when Lara relieved him after five overs.
Instead, the most testing spell came from Ravi Rampaul whose 17 runs from six pacy overs included a pulled six by Craig Wishart off a rare loose ball.
A dropped catch once more denied the 19-year-old his first international wicket, Shivnarine Chanderpaul missing a sitter at second slip off the opener, Vusi Sibanda.
Sibanda was run out by a direct underarm hit of the bowler's stumps by Ricardo Powell, who later held three catches, took a couple of wickets with his off-spin, and hit the winning runs.
Merv Dillon was rewarded for a testing opening spell with Rogers' edged catch to Ridley Jacobs but the West Indies were making no headway when Lara called on Gayle after 22 overs at 106 for two.
Mark Vermuelen took a single off his first ball to raise the 50 partnership with Wishart. His fifth bounced to find the edge of Wishart's cut shot on the way to Jacobs' clutches.
It was the first of three wickets, all for Gayle, for four runs in 3.5 overs that turned the innings round.
Streak and wicket-keeper Tatenda Taibu, such free scorers in earlier matches, spent the next 11 overs adding 31 but Zimbabwe could not break free of the bind Gayle had wrapped round them.
They were 2.1 overs short of their allocation when last man Ray Price's
father-in-law, umpire Kevin Barbour, gave him lbw for a second consolation wicket for the returning Edwards and Price's wife, official scorer Jenny, noted it in the book to end the innings at 196.
When set a similar target at the same ground in the third match - 230 - the West Indies approached it with unwarranted caution. They did not make the same mistake again.
In quick time, Gayle and Wavell Hinds were crashing boundaries in all
directions, adding 43 midway through the eighth over when Hinds' miscued pull off Andy Blignaut sent a low catch to midon.
The dismissal made no difference to the West Indies' approach.
Blignaut, straining for pace, sprayed four successive wides in his fifth over.
Gayle greeted his replacement, Gary Brent, with three fours in his first and raised his 50 with his tenth four for 39 balls, celebrating with a giant six over mid-wicket off the same bowler.
At previous times in both series, Price's left-arm has checked the West Indies batsmen. Not now.
Lara immediately attacked him, lifting him straight for sixes off his second and third balls. When Blignaut came back, Gayle pummelled him straight for four and pulled him for six off successive balls.
The only issue by then was how quickly the West Indies would end Zimbabwe's misery.
Gayle raised his seventh ODI hundred with his 16th four from 69 balls and, even though Ervine bowled Lara leg-stump, only 27 more were required and Powell helped raise them with three fours off the dozen balls he faced.
It was carnage. The only questions were why had it not happened earlier in the tour and will the same positive attitude prevail south of the border?