About 12 000 hometown fans cheered, whistled and waved flagssupporting the West Indies, but it was not enough to prevent SouthAfrica from wrapping up the Cable & Wireless One-Day Internationalcricket series yesterday at Kensington Oval
Mike King10-May-2001About 12 000 hometown fans cheered, whistled and waved flagssupporting the West Indies, but it was not enough to prevent SouthAfrica from wrapping up the Cable & Wireless One-Day Internationalcricket series yesterday at Kensington Oval.Shaun Pollock’s highly-drilled unit, considered the second best in theworld at the moment, crushed the West Indies by seven wickets to takean unassailable 4-1 lead in the seven-match series.Herschelle Gibbs, brilliant in the field and spectacular with the bat,propelled the South Africans to their fourth commanding conquest witha dazzling century, his second of the series. The shaven-skull WesternProvince opener must now be the favourite to win the coveted Man-Of-The-Series award.Knowing that nothing less than a victory would do to sustain interestin the series, about 7 000 fans were already in the Oval even beforethe 9:30 a.m. start.When it was clear the West Indies’ meagre score of 199 would notchallenge the South Africans, however, most of them were heading homeby 4 p.m.After the dust had settled, it was the South Africans and not the WestIndians who were swarmed by over-zealous autograph hunters in front ofthe Players’ Pavilion.Jonty Rhodes, rated the best fielder in the game, and fast bowlerMakhaya Ntini were among the favoured.Most fans grudgingly acknowledged that Pollock’s men were the betterteam but felt the West Indies could have put up a better fight.The boys seem to give up too early. We can’t expect to beat teams likeSouth Africa with low scores such as this. I would have felt better ifwe had gone down fighting, lamented one man.Dozens queried why the West Indies selected fast bowler Kerry Jeremyand did not give the Antiguan a chance to bowl.The Jeremy thing was baffling to me. Why was he selected and thendidn’t bowl? The West Indies are struggling and there are no easyanswers. It will be a while before we become a force again. It hurtsto see the boys perform so badly, said another disappointed fan.The series moves to the Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad for the sixthOne-Dayer on Saturday.