South Africa beat West Indies by 131 runs to clinch the series 4-1
Rilee Rossouw, Hashim Amla and Wayne Parnell were the star performers today, as South Africa won the final and fifth ODI against West Indies to clinch the series 4-1. The home team produced an all-round quality at the Centurion ground as both batsmen Rossouw(132) and Amla(133) scored centuries and shared a record third wicket stand which helped them post a mammoth score of 361/5 on the board, despite only having 42 overs following a rain delay..
South Africa ended their season on a high with 131 runs win over the Caribbean side, after the latter won the toss and opted to field first. The Proteas brought back Quinton de Kock in place of their star batsman AB de Villiers and made three changes in total. De Kock(4) and Faf du Plessis(16) were out for mere runs as the scoreline read 59/2 in 10 overs.
Record third-wicket partnership
Rossouw and Amla shared 247 runs in record third-wicket partnership stand as both players scored their centuries. Amla’s composed innings of 133 from 105 deliveries included 11 fours and 6 sixes, while Russouw’s brutal innings of 132 from 98 balls comprised of 9 fours and 8 sixes. This was Russouw’s second ton in his ODI career, while Amla became the fastest batsman to reach 19 hundreds in the ODI format.
Their third-wicket partnership became the second highest of all time behind the 258 runs scored by Darren Bravo and Denesh Ramdin for the West Indies against Bangladesh last year. Amla and Russouw both fell to Andre Russell, who clinched three wickets at the expense of 85 runs from 8 overs. JP Duminy completed the rout by hitting the last ball for a straight six, finishing the South African innings on a high note.
Worst start for West Indies
Much was expected from Chris Gayle, but he failed to produce once again, as he got out for a duck in the first ball of the innings from Kyle Abbott, caught behind by de Kock. Gayle has had a miserable series scoring 71 runs in the five ODIs with a top score of 41. The West Indies batsmen never caused any problems for the South African bowlers after their worst possible start.
Marlon Samuels fought back and top-scored with 50 off 47 balls, with 4 huge sixes, but was bowled by Abbott in the 28th over, as the tourists were all out for 230 in 37.4 overs.
Wayne Parnell earned himself a valuable confidence boost taking 4 wickets for 42 runs in 9 overs during a spell of eye-catching pace. Abbott ended the match with 2 wickets while de Lange, Phangiso and Behardien completed the match with a wicket each.
Russouw was duly awarded the Man-of-the-match while Amla was given Man-of-the-series award after scoring 413 runs at 206.05 average in the series. He recorded the most runs for a South Africa batsman in a bilateral series, surpassing his own record of 402 against West Indies in 2010.