GROS ISLET – West In­dies quicks spec­tac­u­lar­ly de­mol­ished South Africa on a dra­mat­ic, ab­bre­vi­at­ed third day in St Lu­cia on Sun­day, leav­ing them­selves with a vic­to­ry tar­get of 322 and set­ting up a grand­stand fin­ish to the de­ci­sive third Test at the Daren Sam­my Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

Wet con­di­tions caused by overnight and morn­ing rain forced the aban­don­ment of the first ses­sion but any lin­ger­ing gloom was quick­ly erased as the home side stunned the Pro­teas for 174 in their sec­ond in­nings, in a clin­i­cal ex­hi­bi­tion of bowl­ing and catch­ing.

They were spear­head­ed by the su­perb Ke­mar Roach who claimed four for 52 while Kyle May­ers put aside his strug­gles with the bat to snare three for 24 with his medi­um pace.

Rassie van der Dussen, in at num­ber four, un­der­pinned South Africa’s lim­it­ed re­sis­tance with an ex­cel­lent un­beat­en 75 while tail-en­der Kag­iso Raba­da struck a breezy 40 but the vis­i­tors nev­er re­al­ly re­cov­ered once they tum­bled to 63 for six at tea.

Fac­ing a dif­fi­cult late pe­ri­od in fad­ing light, open­ers Kier­an Pow­ell (9 not out) and Kraigg Brath­waite (5 not out) sur­vived the six overs pos­si­ble to take West In­dies to 15 with­out loss.

West In­dies re­quire a fur­ther 309 for vic­to­ry with two days re­main­ing in the con­test, and will have to com­plete their joint fifth high­est suc­cess­ful run chase in Tests, in or­der to lev­el the se­ries.

The run chase has re­vived mem­o­ries of the sec­ond Test at Leeds four years ago when West In­dies chased down 322 for vic­to­ry on the fi­nal day, af­ter end­ing the penul­ti­mate day on five with­out loss with the same open­ers – Brath­waite and Pow­ell – at the crease.

Roach said the key to vic­to­ry would be the men­tal strength of the Windies bats­man against a high qual­i­ty South Africa at­tack.

“The first hour [is im­por­tant]. Ob­vi­ous­ly we have to come here to­mor­row men­tal­ly pre­pared to grind,” Roach said fol­low­ing the close.

“The South Africa team has a fan­tas­tic bowl­ing line up so it’s all about get­ting your­self in and stay­ing in, that’s what’s im­por­tant to­mor­row.

“The guys are rar­ing to go. We have some very men­tal­ly strong guys in there so once we get them on the park, we should be in for a good Test match.”

Fac­ing a daunt­ing first in­nings deficit of 149 af­ter be­ing dis­missed for 149 at the close on Sat­ur­day’s sec­ond day, West In­dies wast­ed lit­tle time in re­bound­ing.

Roach found Aiden Markram’s (4) edge with just the third ball of the in­nings with four runs on the board, for Hold­er to take the first of three catch­es low at sec­ond slip.

Cap­tain Dean El­gar (10) put on 29 for the sec­ond wick­et with Kee­gan Pe­tersen (18) but Roach in­ter­vened again, com­bin­ing with Hold­er to re­move the left-hand­ed El­gar.

Pe­tersen had spent 35 balls at the crease and struck two fours when he chopped on to May­ers, who then got the sim­i­lar­ly in­ex­pe­ri­enced Kyle Ver­reynne (6) to edge one that held its line for wick­et­keep­er Joshua Da Sil­va to pouch a reg­u­la­tion catch at 52 for four.

With a sin­gle run added four balls lat­er, Hold­er claimed the dan­ger­ous Quin­ton de Kock to a catch at the wick­et with­out scor­ing, and May­ers turned the in­nings on its head with his third wick­et in his next over, hav­ing Wiaan Mul­der caught by Shai Hope at gul­ly al­so with­out scor­ing.

Af­ter rained forced an ear­ly tea, West In­dies kept up their mo­men­tum in the third over fol­low­ing the re­sump­tion, Hold­er pulling off an as­ton­ish­ing one-hand­ed catch div­ing full-length to his right, to get rid of Ke­shav Ma­haraj for six off 19-year-old pac­er Jay­den Seales.

But Van der Dussen, who faced 142 balls and stroked five fours and a six, re­sist­ed stout­ly and found an al­ly in Raba­da to post 70 for the eighth wick­et which frus­trat­ed West In­dies.

Raba­da played with gay aban­don, smash­ing five fours and a six in ca­reer-best knock which last­ed 48 balls be­fore hol­ing out to back­ward point off Roach, and the last three wick­ets then per­ished for 31 runs, as South Africa eked out pre­cious runs at the end.

CMC

Scores:

SOUTH AFRICA 298 (Quin­ton de Kock 96, Dean El­gar 77, Kyle Ver­reynne 27; Kyle May­ers 3-28, Ke­mar Roach 3-45, Shan­non Gabriel 2-55) and 174 (Rassie van der Dussen 75 not out, Kag­iso Raba­da 40; Ke­mar Roach 4-52, Kyle May­ers 3-24)

WEST IN­DIES 149 (Jer­maine Black­wood 49, Shai Hope 43; Wiaan Mul­der 3-1, Kag­iso Raba­da 2-24, Lun­gi Ngi­di 2-27, Ke­shav Ma­haraj 2-47) and 15 with­out loss.