POTCHEF­STROOM – West In­dies’ gal­lant bid for their first One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al se­ries win over South Africa in three decades fell flat in South Africa on Tues­day when they slumped to a four-wick­et de­feat at Sen­wes Park.

De­fend­ing 260 in the se­ries fi­nale af­ter Bran­don King top-scored with a run-a-ball 72, West In­dies lost their dis­ci­pline with the ball, al­low­ing the Pro­teas to speed to their tar­get in the 30th over with Man-of-the-Match Hein­rich Klaasen carv­ing out a bril­liant, un­beat­en 119 off 61 de­liv­er­ies.

The vis­i­tors were in with a shout when the out­stand­ing Alzarri Joseph struck twice ear­ly to re­duce the run chase to 36 for two in the fourth over, and again when the in­nings slipped to 87 for four in the 13th over.

But Klaasen proved the dif­fer­ence, blast­ing 15 fours and five six­es and com­bin­ing with David Miller (17) in a 55-run, fifth wick­et stand and then with Mar­co Jansen (43) in a 103-run, sixth wick­et part­ner­ship, to erase any chance of a West In­dies win.

Joseph earned three for 50 with his pace while left-arm spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein end­ed with two for 49 but the West In­dies at­tacked proved ex­pen­sive, seam­er Ja­son Hold­er leak­ing near­ly 9-½ runs per over from his sev­en-over spell and pac­er Odean Smith and leg-spin­ner Yan­nic Cari­ah both al­so send­ing down cost­ly overs.

“They clear­ly out­played us to­day. I thought we bat­ted well in parts but def­i­nite­ly didn’t ex­e­cute with the ball,” said cap­tain Shai Hope.

“We just didn’t hit our straps. We have our­selves to blame. In a sit­u­a­tion like this, we can’t ex­pect to con­cede [264] in 29 overs so we have our­selves to blame here.”

He added: “I still thought we were in the game [af­ter post­ing 260] but again, we didn’t bowl as well as we need­ed to.”

Sent in, West In­dies were hand­ed a strong start by King, the right-han­der putting on 39 for the first wick­et with Kyle May­ers (14) be­fore adding a fur­ther 71 for the sec­ond wick­et with Shamarh Brooks (18).

May­ers per­ished at the end of the sev­enth over to pac­er Mar­co Jansen (2-46), bril­liant­ly tak­en by Lun­gi Ngi­di run­ning back from mid on while Brooks was run out at the end of the 19th over when he slipped mid-pitch and failed to re­gain his ground in time, af­ter be­ing sent back by King over a sin­gle.

King, who struck 11 fours and a six, reached his fourth ODI fifty off 60 balls and ap­peared in com­mand when he chopped on to a short de­liv­ery from pac­er Ngi­di in the 22nd over.

For­mer cap­tains Nicholas Pooran (39) and Ja­son Hold­er (36) both tried to ral­ly the in­nings but their ef­forts were in vain as West In­dies dis­ap­point­ing­ly lost their last six wick­ets for 100 runs to be all out in the 49th, Hope fail­ing with 16 when he clipped left-arm spin­ner Bjorn For­tu­in (2-46) to Miller at mid-wick­et in the 27th.

Left-han­der Pooran struck a four and three six­es in a 41-ball knock be­fore top-edg­ing a pull at Jansen to fine leg in the 35th, while Hold­er was beat­en in flight and stumped off part-time off-spin­ner Aiden Markram in the 44th af­ter count­ing three fours in 43 balls at the crease.

The hos­tile Joseph gave West In­dies the ide­al start, forc­ing Ryan Rick­el­ton (3) to fend a snorter to May­ers at first slip in the third over be­fore get­ting Rassie van der Dussen caught by May­ers run­ning around be­hind the ’keep­er af­ter the bats­man gloved an­oth­er short ball in the fifth over.

Markram (25), lead­ing the side in place of the in­jured Tem­ba Bavu­ma, propped up the in­nings in a 37-run stand with Tony de Zorzi (21) but when both per­ished in the space of nine balls with 14 runs added, the game was wide open once again.

The right-hand­ed Klaasen took the game away, how­ev­er. He launched a cal­cu­lat­ed at­tack on the West In­dies bowlers en route to his half-cen­tu­ry off 30 balls in the 19th over, be­fore reach­ing his sec­ond ODI hun­dred in the 27th over off just 54 balls – the fourth fastest by a South African.

CMC

Scores:

WEST IN­DIES 260 off 48.2 overs (Bran­don King 72, Nicholas Pooran 39, Ja­son Hold­er 36; Bjorn For­tu­in 2-46, Mar­co Jansen 2-46)

SOUTH AFRICA 264 for six off 29.3 overs (Hein­rich Klaasen 119 not out, Mar­co Jansen 43, Aiden Markram 25; Alzarri Joseph 3-50, Akeal Ho­sein 2-49)

South Africa won by four wick­ets.