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West Indies Sweep T20I Series 3-0 with 8-Wicket Win

West Indies Sweep T20I Series 3-0 with 8-Wicket Win

The West Indies have completed a stunning 3-0 T20I series whitewash of South Africa with an emphatic eight-wicket victory. This win came in the third and final match of the series, played at the Brian Lara Stadium. Using the DLS method, West Indies secured their win despite weather interruptions that impacted the game.

Supremacy over the South African team for the West Indies dates back to March 2023, as this has seen the Caribbean side win eight out of their last ten encounters. Included within this are consecutive 3-0 series wins against the South African team. Their great form marks a period of consistency against a strong opposition.

The last game of the series had to encounter a few rain interruptions. The first one delayed the start of the match for an hour, hence giving South Africa time to clean up and get ready for the match. After this initial start of play, no overs were lost, but midway into the fifth over of South Africa’s innings, there was the second rain interruption that lasted for over an hour, after which the game was significantly reduced to 13 overs a side.

The game restarted, and with that, the West Indies had to start chasing a revised target of 116 runs. They immediately lost the wicket of Alick Athanaze in their chase just four deliveries in. This was not a great setback to have Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran get into the game. They aggressively showed South Africa that their hope of resisting a whitewash was far from possible.

Nicholas Pooran did the needful in the hunt. Just when he looked likely to get his fifty, he mistimed a shot and was caught by Jason Smith off Ottneil Baartman’s bowling. By that time, though, much of the damage had been done. Shimron Hetmyer came in to finish it off with an unbeaten 31 off just mere balls. Shai Hope was unbeaten on 42, with a six over the boundary as well. The West Indies chased down the target quite comfortably, and they won by eight wickets under the DLS method.

Coming to South Africa, they have been pretty below average with the bat in the series. The same followed in this final match too. The Proteas batting line-up failed to see strong individual contributors as it has been for most of the three-match series. Meanwhile, captain Aiden Markram and Tristan Stubbs tried to advance the scoring rate, but an incisive spin attack from Akeal Hosein and stand-in captain Roston Chase confronted them. The two off-spinners were highly economical, with a combined leakage of just 22 runs from the five overs between them.

South Africa’s problems started right from the opening pair of Reeza Hendricks and Ryan Rickelton. Hendricks never got into the rhythm and was finally out for 9 runs off 20 balls. Rickelton did hit a couple of fours and sixes but finally lost his wicket to Romario Shepherd. This collapse at the very start indeed put the South African team under pressure.

Tristan Stubbs was the bedrock of the South African batters. Always a player who never shies away from playing his strokes, he managed to score 40 runs at an incredible strike rate of 266.67 as SA managed to post 108/4 on the board. Unfortunately, even he couldn’t manage to turn the course of the match around despite the brilliance.

The brief scorecard of the match is thus: West Indies 116/2 (Shai Hope 42*, Nicholas Pooran 35; Bjorn Fortuin 1-8) vs South Africa 108/4 (Tristan Stubbs 40; Romario Shepherd 2-14). A whitewash series in favor of the West Indies says it all about their supremacy and is an indication that they are getting something right in this format.

ANI

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