Sport

Ntini wrecks WI, SA go one up

Man-of-the-match Makhaya Ntini of South Africa (left) collecting his hat from Nicky Boje after he wrecked the West Indies second innings with figures of seven for 37. At centre is wicketkeeper Mark Boucher. - Dellmar

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC:

MAKHAYA NTINI REWROTE several lines of the record book with another devastating spell of fast bowling that paved the way for South Africa's emphatic eight-wicket victory on the final day of the second Digicel Test against the West Indies yesterday.

The 27-year-old fast bowler turned a close, draining contest into a romp on another sun-drenched day in taking four of the last five second innings wickets to fall, finishing with his best Test innings figures of seven for 37.

His match analysis of 13 for 132 was also the best ever by a South African while it also erased the 13 for 156 of England's Tony Greig on the same ground in 1974 as the best match analysis in a Test match in the Caribbean.

Only Ramnaresh Sarwan, who completed a seventh Test hundred, defied the rampant Ntini as the West Indies lost their last five wickets for 24 runs to be dismissed for 194 an hour into the morning, leaving the visitors with a potentially tricky 144 for victory.

Academic

But that task was made to look academic as the opening pair of AB de Villiers (62) and Graeme Smith (41) played positively, benefiting from dismissals off no-balls on the way to a 117-run partnership.

In stark contrast to the searing pace and lethal accuracy of Ntini, who was given excellent support by the equally hostile Andre Nel, the home team's bowlers were again wayward and indisciplined, conceding seven no-balls and three wides to conspire against their own efforts.

Dwayne Bravo and Darren Powell eventually removed the openers and it was left to Jacques Kallis to stroke the winning boundary past bowler Reon King half an hour after tea. As if to rub salt even deeper into gaping wounds, Jacques Rudolph was missed a few minutes earlier by a diving Sarwan at gully as the left-hander attempted to slash Powell to the backward-point boundary to end the match.

The result extended the West Indies' poor run at the Queen's Park Oval, where they have now lost seven of the last eight Tests on the ground, including a 69-run defeat four years ago that pushed South Africa ahead on the way to a 2-1 in win the four-match series and a first hold on the Sir Vivian Richards Trophy.

Coming off a lethargic performance in the drawn first Test in Guyana, Graeme Smith's men will now leave Trinidad next week with a 1-0 lead en route to Barbados for the third Test beginning April 21st at Kensington Oval.

Before that however, they will face a University of the West Indies XI in a two-day match this coming weekend at the UWI, St Augustine campus in east Trinidad.

The West Indies technical staff, headed by coach Bennett King, faces a major challenge in the intervening period to get a combination together that will prove more disciplined and consistent in a match they must win to have any chance of wresting the trophy from the South Africans.