While the West Indies were in tears, South Africa's captain Graeme Smith, centre, celebrates with his team-mates after their win on the final Cricket One-Day International game against the West Indies at Wanderers, cricket stadium in Johannesburg, South A
THERE was no grand finale to their South African tour for the West Indies at floodlt Wanderers here last night, simply another loss so close and dispiriting it left the youngest player in the team, Ravi Rampaul, understandably distraught and in tears.
Inevitably guided on their quest to overhaul the West Indies' formidable 304 for two in the fifth and final one-day international by Jacques Kallis' sixth hundred of the season, South Africa were all but home with nine required with two overs left.
Kallis was 139 and pounding the ball with a bat that would be more classified as a weapon of mass destruction than anything yet found in Iraq, when Brian Lara recalled Rampaul to complete his last over, the 49th.
Everything that the 19-year-old fast bowler has done on tour, his first at senior level, has confirmed not only his promise but his fierce competitiveness.
The combination was evident again in a sensational over in which he not only claimed Kallis for 139, taken on the extra-cover boundary attempting his fourth six off his 143rd ball, but yielded just a solitary run.
With the equation eight from the last over, and Mark Boucher and Shaun Pollock newly arrived in the middle, Lara entrusted Chris Gayle to complete the job he started earlier with a commanding, unbeaten 152 from 153 balls.
The prize for the West Indies was a share of the one-day series, some late consolation for the 3-0 loss in the Tests.
It is a role Gayle has often performed with his flat, full length off-spin. Now he, Rampaul and the West Indies were let down by slack fielding off two successive deliveries that settled the issue.
Boucher nudged an off-side single off first ball and Pollock drove the second past cover.
The sweeper, Ryan Hurley, sprinting to his right, seemed to have the shot comfortably covered but then chose to slide to make the save. The ball escaped his clutches, two became four, West Indian heads dropped and South Africa's target was down to three from four balls.
Pollock drove the third ball to long-off where Merv Dillon's fumble converted one into two to level scores.
Pollock then placed an exclamation mark to the match by dispatching the next ball over long-off for the sixth six of the innings to the joyful accompaniment of whooping spectators who packed the ground to its 30,000 capacity.
The pattern of the match was a mirror image of the fourth in Centurion on Sunday when the West Indies' overhauled South Africa's 297 for four with seven wickets and five overs to spare.
Gayle's sixth hundred in one-day internationals that lasted from first ball to last, his opening partnership of 193 from 38.3 overs with Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who followed Sunday's 95 with 85 from 114 balls, and Ricardo Powell's breathtaking, unbeaten 49 off 24 balls formed the basis of the second West Indies' total over 300 in successive matches.
It meant South Africa had to post the highest second innings total in such matches at the Wanderers to add the one-day to the Test trophy.
As in Sunday's victory that earned the West Indies their only win for the tour over South Africa, such totals on a flat, true pitch are no guarantee against defeat and Kallis, with a little help from his friends, proved it.
As strong as an African ox and as merciless with his prey as a lion, Kallis gorged on the West Indies bowling as he has done all season.
He compiled hundreds in each of the four Tests, started the one-day series with another in the opener in Cape Town and was only denied another as the overs ran out when he was unbeaten 95 in Centurion.
He controlled South Africa's pursuit of their distant goal from the sixth over, when he arrived at 31 for one on the dismissal of Herschelle Gibbs to a topedged pull off Corey Collymore, until he was dismissed for only the second time in the series, once more by Rampaul.
Lara's characteristically unusual bowling choices and changes could not slow South Africa's scoring.
He used Hurley's off-spin for one over with the new ball, gave Ramnaesh Sarwan a solitary over mid-innings and rang 14 bowling changes.
He could do nothing about Collymore's nightmare night, except to recognise it earlier and limit it.
Previously, the West Indies' best bowler, Collymore was assaulted for two sixes and 11 fours from his 10 overs that yielded 83 runs in three separate spells.
Kallis and Graeme Smith, the left-handed captain, added 102 for the second wicket in 18 overs before Gayle bowled Smith with a straight ball he missed, trying for runs to third man.
The innings lost some momentum when Boeta Dippenaar dawled 37 balls over 28 before Rampaul cooly caught him at long-off from Hurley.
Kallis and the left-handed Jacques Rudolph revived it again, adding 90 from 10 overs. It was 277 for four, with South Africa well in control, when Rudolph lifted Rampaul to deep cover in the 46th over.
Lara's incredible, diving left-handed catch at midwicket that removed the dangerous Lance Klusener for 4 and Rampaul's exceptional 49th over left it once more in the balance.
The fielding blunders meant in finally shifted to South Africa.
Gayle's first major innings of the one-day series and his partnership with Chanderpaul set a platform from which the last 10 overs could be taken for 103, mainly by Gayle and Powell in a partnership of 91 from the last 8.3 overs that featured a string of awesome strokes.
But Gayle and Chanderpaul went along at a steady five runs an over, contenting themselves with 52 runs between the 30th and 40th overs when, with all wickets in hand, at least 20 more were available with a little more urgency.
The treatment of Pollock was proof of what was possible.
South Africa's meanest bowler had just seven runs taken from his first five overs. When he returned, Lara was out for 11 but Gayle and Powell were in full flight and his last five were taken for 40. No shot for the match was better than Gayle's amazing pull from a good length into the crowd from Pollock's first ball of a new spell - unless it was Powell's wristy, improvised flick over the square-leg ropes off Andre Nel.
The late assault by the two Jamaicans should have been enough to ensure victory. But Kallis was there to trump them.