Markram, Ngidi star as South Africa defeat Windies in 5th T20I, win series
Jul 04, 2021
St George [Grenada], July 4 : Victory by 25 runs in the fifth and final T20I, gave South Africa a 3-2 series triumph over the current ICC T20 World Cup Champions, West Indies here at the National Cricket Stadium on Saturday (local time).
This means that South Africa has successfully claimed back-to-back series wins against the home team following the Dean Elgar-led Test series sweep. The T20I series win also marks Temba Bavuma's first series win in his new position as T20 team captain.
A match-winning, 128-run, second-wicket stand between Quinton de Kock and Aiden Markram set up the visitors' road to their final score of 168/4 at the end of their allotted overs. De Kock made a 42-ball 60 while Markram returned a career-best score of 70 off 48.
David Miller and Wiaan Mulder then returned unbeaten for 18 and nine respectively.
With the ball, Tabraiz Shamsi did not disappoint in keeping the West Indian batsmen quiet, but it was the inclusion of Wiaan Mulder (2/31) into the attack that provided the game changing moment of the day.
He took the consecutive wickets of captain Kieron Pollard (13) and Andre Russell (0) to halt the Windies' chase, while Kagiso Rabada (2/24) and Lungi Ngidi (3/32) polished off the tail at the death after beginning with good strides up front.
Markram was named Player of the Match and Shamsi received the Player of the Series accolade.
Brief Scores: South Africa 168/4 (Aiden Markram 70, Quinton de Kock 60, Fidel Edwards 2-19); West Indies 143/9 (Evin Lewis 52, Shimron Hetmyer 33, Lungi Ngidi 3-32).
