Outstanding spells from ace quick Kagiso Rabada and left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj helped bundle out West Indies for just 165 as South Africa won the second and final Test of the two-match series in St Lucia, ending with a 2-0 clean sweep.
After Rabada’s early strikes, Maharaj became only the second South Africa bowler to take a Test match hat-trick and went on to bag a five-fer. Together they made short work of the struggling West Indies unit and led their country’s surge to its first away Test series win since 2017 and first under new skipper Dean Elgar.
West Indies headed into Day 4 in Gros Islet, needing another 309 runs of the target of 324 in difficult batting conditions – a very stiff chase considering the opposition attack and poor state of their own batting unit. And though openers Kraigg Brathwaite and Kieron Powell had managed to play through to stumps the previous evening, they couldn’t continue for long on Monday, with Rabada dismissing the former almost immediately after the play resumed.
Rabada followed it up with another quick breakthrough – this time Shai Hope – to reinforce a sense of inevitability about the hosts’ fate. But just when it seemed the visitors would easily make further inroads, Powell was joined by Kyle Mayers for a fighting 64-run third-wicket stand. The duo exhibited strong grit and defiance in the face of adversity.
However, West Indies’ hopes of extending the stand and taking the game to the opposition were washed away again by Rabada, who dismissed Mayers for 34. At the other end, Powell managed to reach past fifty (51) but was soon done in by Maharaj to kickstart a procession of wickets that the spinner will never ever forget.
He got Jason Holder and Joshua de Silva on the following two deliveries and rewrote the history books. Maharaj, by lunch, was only the second South African ever to take a Test trio after Geoff Griffin, who achieved the remarkable feat 60 years back at Lord’s against England.
Post lunch, while Jermaine Blackwood and Kemar Roach showed some resistance through their 40-run partnership, West Indies eventually collapsed to another score of less than 200 and lost the game by a heavy margin of 158 runs. Blackwood was dismissed for 25 by Lungi Ngidi. Maharaj added the wickets of Roach and Jayden Seales to his kitty and finished with a five-fer. With injured Roston Chase unavailable to bat, the West Indies innings got over and South Africa had a much-needed series win within their period of transition.
For West Indies, the series was a crude reminder of their problems with the bat, a check of brutal reality that they can’t depend on once-in-a-while knocks to cover up for their deeper issues against quality opposition at the Test level.
The hosts managed a total of only 149 in the first-innings, having posted scores of just 97 & 162 in the first Test, with none of their batsmen crossing the fifty-run mark. Blackwood had top-scored with a 49, while Hope (43) was the only other batsman to last for some time at the crease.
In their two innings, SA also were out for scores of 298 and 174, with Dean Elgar (77), Quinton de Kock (96) and Rassie van der Dussen (75) required to deliver stand-out knocks. But their bowling was good enough to ensure the visitors don’t pay for their inexperienced batting unit.
Maharaj ended with seven wickets in the game, but it was Rabada who received the ‘Player-of-the-Match’ for spells of 2/24 & 3/44, backed up with vital contributions of 21* and 40 with the bat in what was a low-scoring fixture.
Brief scores
South Africa 298 (Quinton de Kock 96, Dean Elgar 77; Kyle Mayers 3/28, Kemar Roach 3/45) & 174 (Rassie van der Dussen 75*, Kagiso Rabada 40; Kemar Roach 4/52, Kyle Mayers 3/24) beat West Indies 149 (Jermaine Blackwood 49, Shai Hope 43; Wiaan Mulder 3/1, Kagiso Rabada 2/24) & 165 (Kieran Powell 51, Kyle Mayers 34; Keshav Maharaj 5/36, Kagiso Rabada 3/44) by 158 runs
