PRE­TO­RIA – New West In­dies Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell start­ed his reign with a bang on Sat­ur­day when he dragged his side to a three-wick­et win against South Africa and gave them a 1-0 lead in their three-match se­ries.

Pow­ell slugged one four and five six­es in the top score of 43 not out from 18 balls, hold­ing his nerve in the clos­ing overs, to lead a suc­cess­ful chase of 132 in a con­test re­duced to 11 overs-a-side be­cause of ad­verse weath­er at Cen­tu­ri­on Park.

The 29-year-old Ja­maican en­tered the fray with West In­dies halfway to their tar­get in the fifth over on 66 for three and pro­ceed­ed to dom­i­nate the re­main­der of the match with his ex­plo­sive bat­ting that earned him the Play­er-of-the Match award.

“Af­ter the dis­ap­point­ment of the (pre­ced­ing) One-day In­ter­na­tion­als the way I got out, I had an hon­est talk with my­self, I de­cid­ed that I was just go to try to bat through the tough pe­ri­ods, and it worked out,” Pow­ell said af­ter play.

Open­er Bran­don King gave the chase a fly­ing start with two fours and two six­es in 23 off on­ly eight balls and en­abled West In­dies to reach 46 for two af­ter the three-over Pow­er Play.

Af­ter King was bowled be­hind his back, mov­ing too far in­side the line to swing a full toss from burly pac­er Sisan­da Ma­g­a­la in the third over, two-time T20I World Cup-win­ning bats­man John­son Charles kept West In­dies on track.

When Charles was caught on the long-on bound­ary off un­ortho­dox left-arm spin­ner Tabraiz Sham­si in the sixth over for 28 off 14 balls that in­clud­ed one six and three fours, the vis­i­tors need­ed 56 from 32 balls.

Pow­ell took charge of the chase, tak­ing his on­ly four and three six­es off left-arm spin­ner Bjorn For­tu­in in the eighth over, re­duc­ing the equa­tion to 20 from the last 18 balls – but three wick­ets – two to Ma­g­a­la off suc­ces­sive balls in the penul­ti­mate over – added to the dra­ma.

Pow­ell kept his com­po­sure and for­malised the re­sult with three balls re­main­ing when he swung left-arm pac­er Wayne Par­nell over square leg for six off the sec­ond ball of the fi­nal over and tick­led the next de­liv­ery in­to leg-side for a sin­gle.

Ma­g­a­la was the most suc­cess­ful South African bowler with three for 21 from his al­lot­ted two overs.

“A lot of guys in the team are used to the T10 for­mat and that helped us,” Pow­ell said. “We know that the ball trav­els so nice­ly (at this ground), and we knew that 130 was get­table. All we need­ed was for two bat­ters to bat long.

“We played a lot of shots, but there are still pe­ri­ods where you have to push it around. You can’t keep hit­ting good bowlers for six, six, six. When you get good bowlers, good in­ter­na­tion­al bowlers, you’ve got to hit them for a six and get off the strike and let the non-strik­er do some of the work.”

The sec­ond T20I of the se­ries takes place on Sun­day at the same venue, and Pow­ell said his side need­ed to ex­e­cute if they are to con­demn their op­po­nents to a fourth suc­ces­sive T20I home se­ries loss.

“We just have to do the ba­sics right,” he said. “We saw how the ball trav­els, so the bowlers will come un­der a lot of pres­sure, but it’s im­por­tant for us to get wick­ets with the new ball be­cause that’s the on­ly way to stop a strong South African bat­ting line-up.”

Ear­li­er, West In­dies failed to main­tain their in­ten­si­ty, and left-hand­ed T20 spe­cial­ist David Miller cracked 48 off 22 balls to pro­pel South Africa to 131 for eight af­ter they were put in­to bat.

Af­ter rain de­layed the start by two hours, left-arm spin­ner Ho­sein gave West In­dies a dream start when he got Quin­ton de Kock caught at deep fine leg off the first ball of the match from a top-edged sweep.

Left-arm pac­er Shel­don Cot­trell got Rilee Rous­souw caught at mid-off for 10 from a sliced pull in the sec­ond over, but the South Africans end­ed the three-over Pow­er Play strong­ly on 30 for two when Ho­sein con­ced­ed 16 from his sec­ond over that in­clud­ed two leg-side six­es to Reeza Hen­dricks.

West In­dies re­bound­ed and re­duced the Pro­teas to 79 for six in the ninth over, but Miller blast­ed four fours and three six­es and put on 47 for the sev­enth wick­et with Ma­g­a­la that gave the hosts some­thing with which they could work.

CMC

Sum­marised scores:

SOUTH AFRICA 131 for eight off 11 overs (David Miller 48, Reeza Hen­dricks 21; Odean Smith 2-27, Shel­don Cot­trell 2-31).

WEST IN­DIES 132 for sev­en off 10.3 overs (Rov­man Pow­ell 43 not out, John­son Charles 28, Bran­don King 23; Sidan­da Ma­g­a­la 3-21)

West In­dies won by three wick­ets.