By Geoffrey Dean in Durban
DIFFERENT wicket-takers, same story. Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock were below their best, claiming only one victim between them, but it mattered not as South Africa's second-string seamers, Jacques Kallis, David Terbrugge and Hansie Cronje, rolled West Indies over for 198 on the opening day of the Third Test.
Brian Lara's side lurch from one disaster to another. This XI had five changes from the second Test, including two new openers, the ninth different pairing West Indies have tried in the past 23 Tests. Against all expectation, Philo Wallace and Junior Murray compiled the first 50-run opening stand by either side in this series. But then bad habits resurfaced.
The list of those getting out to bad shots reads long. Lara and Carl Hooper exhibited the greatest death wish, with Wallace and Shivnarine Chanderpaul not far behind. The last two drove loosely with bats well away from their bodies before Hooper flailed at the widest ball of the day, edging high to first slip.
Lara played a bizarre innings, featuring some glorious shots but also several uncontrolled hooks as Donald tried to bounce him out. Having pulled a Terbrugge long hop for six, Lara tried to do the same to a ball of much fuller length and spliced to mid-on. He trudged off aghast.
A promisingly solid innings which lasted two hours from Daren Ganga, 19, in his first Test was ended by a crooked stroke. Now began an embarrassing and telling collapse as the last five wickets fell in seven overs. Cronje was presented with his best Test return.
Day 2: Audacious Rhodes the guiding light
By Geoffrey Dean in Durban
MORE dreadful batting on a good pitch from the West Indies left them in a gravely weak position. In achieving the highest score of the series by either side, South Africa have engineered a lead which should take them 3-0 up after this third Test.
Once again, it was the South African lower order, audaciously marshalled by Jonty Rhodes, whose unbeaten 85 took only 123 balls, that played a key role. At 182 for five, the complexion of the game was unclear before several factors tilted the balance.
These included an old ball, Rawl Lewis's inability to contain as the fast bowlers rested, and above all, the controlled aggression of Rhodes and Shaun Pollock. Franklyn Rose bowled magnificently to take six wickets, but Curtly Ambrose was badly off from, his rhythm clearly affected by a spate of no-balls. Kevin Curran, his former Northamptonshire team-mate, reckoned that it was the worst he had seen him bowl. ``He just had no nip today,'' Curran said.
Not that that should detract from Rhodes' highest Test score in front of his adoring home crowd, at 15,000 the biggest of the series. Twice he pulled Ambrose for six, employing his favourite shot to telling effect whenever the bowlers pitched short. The majority of his runs were scored on the leg side, a poor reflection on some of the bowling.
Rhodes became the first batsman in the series to get as far as the eighties. The rest of the South African top order spurned the opportunity despite getting starts. Although Hansie Cronje was defeated by an excellent off-cutter, Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis gave their wickets away with careless shots. Daryll Cullinan ran himself out after taking on Rose's arm at third man.
Rose's six for 75 beat his previous Test best of six for 100 which he took on his debut against India at Kingston in 1997.
His opening spell lasted 100 minutes, a feat made possible by permanent and murky cloud cover that necessitated the lights to be switched on at 1pm for the rest of play.
Exploiting the humidity to swing the ball out, as Kallis had done on Saturday, Rose maintained a full length and a good line.
He removed Gary Kirsten with a beauty when Carl Hooper at second slip made a difficult chance look simple. His fabulous one-handed goalkeeper-like catch to dismiss Pollock will not be bettered this series, but nor will anyone play a worse shot than Hooper did to get out on Saturday.
He was not alone in making a present of his wicket. A succession of West Indian batsmen allowed looseness to be their master. Philo Wallace and Shivnarine Chanderpaul were particularly culpable as was Brian Lara. Some wonderful shots featured in his fifty, but he was streaky at times, and fell attempting an ill-advised pull.
Day 3: Boucher's false claim exposed by television
By Geoffrey Dean in Durban
THE West Indies were facing almost certain series defeat last night after the third day of the third Test at Kingsmead, but some of the gloss for South Africa was taken off by an unacceptable piece of gamesmanship by their wicketkeeper, Mark Boucher.
Victory for Hansie Cronje should come today, with the West Indies only 132 ahead with two wickets in hand. South Africa won the first two Tests.
The West Indies had staged an unexpected fightback in the form of a third-wicket stand of 160 in a mere 45 overs between Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul when they got out in successive overs.
With the lead then only 90, everything depended on Carl Hooper as the last remaining middle-order valuable. But he departed, sadly without reference to the third umpire, after Boucher claimed a catch that television replays proved conclusively was not clean.
Hooper got an inside edge to Shaun Pollock that flew low to the left of Boucher, who took the ball one-handed on the full before momentarily grounding it.
Similar reservations were expressed in England last summer when Boucher ran out Alec Stewart in a one-day international without the ball in his gloves.
The incident left a sour taste and deflected attention from some wonderful batting from Chanderpaul and Lara, two outstanding catches from Herschelle Gibbs and Allan Donald's achievement in reaching 250 Test wickets in the second-fastest time. Rawl Lewis's edge from a loose drive took him to the milestone in his 50th Test.
Gibbs's remarkable, acrobatic diving catch to his wrong side at square leg removed Lara at a crucial time. On an excellent pitch prepared by Phil Russell, formerly of Derbyshire, containing bounce and pace, Lara hit 79 from 139 balls.
Lara elevated his batting on to a plain beyond all bar Sachin Tendulkar of contemporary players. He scored mostly on the off side with drives, cuts and beautifully executed back-foot forcing shots.
His partnership with Chanderpaul, who invoked equally good shot selection in his four-hour 75, was looking ominous for South Africa, who seemed at a loss how to end it. But Lara, having refrained from hooking or pulling, finally succumbed to temptation and did not keep his pull down. In the next over Chanderpaul carelessly drove a return catch to Pollock.
Franklyn Rose had earlier finished off the South African innings to record career-best figures of seven for 84. They were also the best by a visiting bowler in a Kingsmead Test.
Day 4: South Africa clinch series
By Geoffrey Dean in Durban
SOUTH AFRICA wrapped up the third Test in Durban by nine wickets yesterday, and with this victory condemned the West Indies to their sixth consecutive Test defeat outside the Caribbean - their worst run of away form since 1975-76.
Soon after lunch, the match - and with it the series - was all over. Gary Kirsten drove Rawl Lewis for four to seal victory, then embraced Jacques Kallis while the crowd of 9,000 cheered. The humbling of the once-mighty West Indies was complete, 3-0 down with two to play, and beaten yesterday with barely a whimper.
Their nadir may not yet have been reached, for the unthinkable a whitewash - looks possible. Courtney Walsh pulled a hamstring and is very doubtful for the fourth Test, which begins in Cape Town on Saturday, while Curtly Ambrose is struggling with knee problems.
In hindsight, the West Indies were in trouble long before the series began - the Heathrow''''strike'' can only have had the most unsettling effect. Team spirit has been hard to identify in the team's body language, and yesterday as they took the field, their slumped shoulders transmitted an obvious belief that they had no chance of bowling South Africa out for under 146.
They were soon proved right, as Walsh and Ambrose, after a short burst each, became incapacitated. Not that their full fitness would have helped - the pitch was too good and the team's mood too dark.
Kirsten and Herschelle Gibbs were given little more than an extended net as they put together the highest opening stand of the series - 97 at a rate of three an over. Gibbs spurned a gilt-edged opportunity of a second fifty in his ninth Test, but his job had really been done the day before. His four catches, two of them brilliant, equalled the national record by an outfielder in an innings.
This trouncing has gone down very badly in the Caribbean where calls for Brian Lara's head, as captain, have been multiplying. Disquiet has been amplified by the whole affair at Heathrow, where demands for extra pay were eventually met by the West Indies Board.
Lara, looking miserable at the post-match press conference but bearing himself with dignity, admitted: ``The spirit is very low,'' but I've got to give South Africa praise for their all-round effort.''''
Bob Woolmer, the South African coach, said that he thought the acute disappointment of losing the series in England last summer had played a significant part in motivating his side for this series.
``I'm afraid that the West Indies may have suffered a backlash from the England tour - we learnt that once we get into a winning position, we had to nail opponents off.''