CENTURION, South Africa, (CMC) - South Africa’s two most experienced bowlers broke the back of the West Indian resistance and the home team then dodged the showers to complete a crushing ten-wicket victory and a 3-0 series triumph in the final session of the Fourth Test at SuperSport Park yesterday.
With their hopes for an honourable draw fuelled by the defiance of Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle on the fourth day, the tourists capitulated to the twin assault of Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock, losing their last seven wickets for 75 runs in between long delays for light rain that threatened to thwart the hosts.
But when Andre Nel took the last wicket to dismiss the West Indies for 348 and leave South Africa with a nominal target of 46, Graeme Smith and Herschelle Gibbs raced to victory under darkening skies in less than four overs.
Gibbs earned the man-of-the-match award for the match top score of 192, while Ntini, whose second innings figures of three for 99 lifted his series haul to 29 -- equalling Pollock’s record against the Windies -- was voted man-of-the-series ahead of the outstanding batsman of the four Tests, Jacques Kallis.
Brian Lara, who had spoken optimistically before the series about bearding the South African lions in their own den, acknowledged that the inability, through inconsistent bowling and poor out-cricket, to control the home team’s rate of scoring was a critical factor in his side’s demise.
“I think it’s pretty obvious to see that the South Africans were scoring too quickly,” said the West Indies captain.
“We scored almost 600 runs ourselves in both innings of each Test, but unfortunately we took an enormous amount of time to get those runs, unlike South Africa. Players have got to take the responsibility and do the job themselves. It’s good to have coaches and so on, but the players must push themselves.”
Basking in the glory of his first series triumph at home as captain, Graeme Smith praised the attitude of his players.
“We’ve got a great culture going in the squad now. To see guys not satisfied with one hundred in the series was great,” he noted.
“Our bowlers, with the benefit of runs on the board, really produced the goods. The game plans worked and it was really good to see them run in all the time.”
There was real urgency in the South African squad when they finally got on the field on the last day after continuous overnight and morning showers delayed the start of play until 50 minutes before lunch.
As expected, the second new ball was taken immediately and brought almost instant rewards as Gayle chased a wide delivery from Ntini and presented a simple catch to Neil McKenzie at deep gully, having added just one run to his overnight 106.
Sarwan, the other overnight batsman, equalled his Test-best of 119 but then fell victim to the first real umpiring error of the match, being adjudged leg-before by Srinivas Venkataraghavan to a delivery from Pollock that seemed to be bouncing over the stumps.
The Indian official looked to have got it wrong again when, after unusually long deliberation, he also ruled Ridley Jacobs lbw to Pollock after lunch.
In-between, Ntini had sent Dwayne Smith’s off stump cartwheeling before he had scored while Drakes gave Gibbs catching practice at gully off Pollock.
A flurry of boundaries from Dillon and a further rain delay of just over two hours seemed to be conspiring against another South African victory, but the excellent drainage of the ground and the work of the groundstaff ensured a resumption at 3.45 p.m.
However it took almost 45 frustrating minutes for the tail to be mopped up, Dillon edging Pollock to first slip to end an entertaining innings of 29 and give the former captain his fourth wicket, while Nel replaced Ntini and almost immediately uprooted Fidel Edwards’ off-stump to leave a modest victory target.
Smith and Gibbs wasted no time in performing the final rites, and in keeping with the indiscipline of the West Indies’ bowling throughout the series, it was somehow fitting that the match ended with Edwards spraying another wide delivery down the leg-side beyond the reach of the batsman and the wicketkeeper.
Despite the one-sided final series result, a much closer contest is expected when the first of five one-dayers is played under lights on Sunday in Cape Town.
Before that fixture, the tourists take on South Africa A in a day/night duel in Paarl on Friday when all four players specially flown in for the shorter version of the game are expected to play.
SOUTH AFRICA 1st innings 604-6 declared (H.Gibbs 192; R.Sarwan 2-55)
West Indies 1st innings 301 (C.Gayle 77; M.Ntini 5-49)
West Indies 2nd innings (o/n 44 for 2)
C.Gayle c McKenzie b Ntini 107
D.Ganga b Ntini 0
R.Sarwan lbw Pollock 119
B.Lara lbw b Nel 6
S.Chanderpaul c Gibbs b Kallis 27
D.Smith b Ntini 0
R.Jacobs lbw Pollock 3
V.Drakes c Gibbs b Pollock 4
M.Dillon c Smith b Pollock 29
C.Collymore not out 13
F.Edwards b Nel 10
Extras: (b-4, lb-11, w-7, nb-8) 30
Total: (all out, 106.4 overs) 348
Fall of wickets: 1-18 2-32 3-99, 4-273, 5-277, 6-278, 7-284, 8-309, 9-322.
Bowling: Pollock 32-10-69-4, Ntini 28-4-99-3, Nel 15.4-2-64-2, Kallis 16-4-49-1, Hall 0.2-0-4-0, Smith 8.4-1-24-0, Rudolph 6-0-24-0.