A fantastic Proteas bowling effort blew the West Indies off Buffalo Park before the South Africans wrapped up the five-match one-day series in style with a crushing nine-wicket victory last night.
The bowling attack saw the Windies collapse to 122 all out, while the Proteas cruised to victory with 152 balls to spare.
Hashim Amla increased his series average to 263 with a 63-ball 61 not out while he and Faf du Plessis (51) shared an unbeaten 97-run partnership to guide the Proteas home with no trouble.
Amla and Rilee Rossouw (7) got the chase off to a brisk start before Rossouw skied a catch to Narsingh Deonarine off the bowling of captain Jason Holder, leaving SA on 27/1.
This was to be their only breakthrough although they did drop Du Plessis on 39, with SA just 19 runs short of the target.
Amla and Du Plessis took SA past 50 in the 12th over and then brought up their 50 partnership off 75 balls in the 18th over.
Amla brought the total to 100 in the 21st over with a four, and reached his 27th international half-century with a sublime cover drive to the boundary off the very next delivery.
Du Plessis then reached his half-century with a single in the 24th over before Amla ended the Windies suffering with another boundary off Chris Gayle in the 25th over as SA ended on 124/1.
In the afternoon session the West Indies won the toss and Holder chose to bat first in overcast conditions. They found themselves in immediate trouble as they were reduced to 6/2 inside the first four overs.
This included the dismissal of talisman Gayle for just one run as Vernon Philander found sufficient early movement off the deck to remove both dangerous openers in his first two overs.
Philander first accounted for Dwayne Smith, caught behind by captain AB De Villiers for five off his first ball, and in his second over Gayle nicked one of his deliveries through to De Villiers to leave the Windies in a spot of bother.
Narsingh Deonarine (10) and Marlon Samuels attempted to rebuild the innings, but their 27-run partnership was broken by Dale Steyn when Amla’s attempted catch bounced up and De Villiers managed to glove the ball.
It was Steyn’s 150th international wicket and the Proteas premier pace bowler was back in action just 10 runs later as he bowled Denesh Ramdin (2) to put the Windies in deep trouble at 43/4.
The introduction of Imran Tahir then brought an end to Samuels’s innings, caught off a top edge by Rilee Rossouw for the Windies highest score of 26, and any chance of a competitive total left with him. Jonathan Carter and Andre Russell attempted to bring a bit of respectability to the score as they battened down the hatches, scoring just eight runs between the 15th and 22nd over.
They then picked it up a touch as Russell cracked a couple of boundaries off successive Steyn deliveries and Carter hit the innings’ first six, but their partnership of 31 ended when Morne Morkel bowled Russell for 16. The wickets kept tumbling as Tahir trapped both Carter (18) and Carlos Brathwaite (4) leg before. Jerome Taylor (0) was then trapped in front by Philander with the Windies slipping to 96/9 and in danger of not even posting 100.
But captain Holder and Sulieman Benn entertained the crowd with a couple of boundaries and a huge Benn six in a 26- run partnership, before Benn became Tahir’s fourth victim, stumped for 18 by De Villiers to end the innings.
Philander earned himself the man of the match award for his impressive opening spell and top figures of 3/27 off eight overs while Tahir 4/28, Steyn 2/21 and Morkel 1/26 all bowled superbly as well.