West Indies vs South Africa, 3rd T20I at Kingston, WI vs SA, May 26 2024 - Ball by Ball Commentary

Brandon King grabs the T20I series trophy and then walks across to his team-mates. Thank you all for joining us through these three games. The T20 World Cup is less than one week away where West indies play Papua New Guinea in Match 2. South Africa will play Sri Lanka in Match 4. We'll see you then. Bye bye!

Winning stand-in captain Brandon King: "Happy with my own performance. Would've liked to carry my bat through the end though. We understand each others' games, playing few years together. Important 3-0 win, last series before the World Cup, so important preparation and good momentum going into the World Cup. Our bowling performances were very pleasing, we had consistency through it. Motie and other different contributors. Speaks well that a lot of our main players are missing. Can't wait to meet with the other boys before the World Cup."

Losing stand-in captain Rassie van der Dussen: "Thoroughly disappointing. Not what we had in mind coming here. From the first game they were all over us. We couldn't adapt, and today we couldn't find answers with the ball. Not happy with that. The chat coming into today was that you can chat all you want but have to deliver in the middle. We couldn't do that today. Time for talking is done, we'll need our experienced people coming in to take more responsibility. There's no excuse. We were caught off guard how they played with the bat and they were better with the ball as simple as that. We were taught a few lessons. The majority of the squad has been playing last 3-4 years so they know each other. de Kock in form was good, also Peter.

The presentations continue. Gukadesh Motie is the Player of the Series for his eight wickets at an average of 8.5 and economy of 6.18! "Been working very hard," Motie says. "We've been working on the camp. I've been working on how to control the overs in the middle overs. Wide yorkers and straight ones too. The other surfaces in the World Cup will be similar."

4.50pm Time for the presentation. It begins despite loud music blazing all around the stadium. In the midst of it, Johnson Charles will collect the POTM award for his ultracool 69 at a strike-rate of 265. "It was great," Charles said. "We've been working hard during the camp and in the series. Worked hard on our skills leading upto the World Cup. Just enforcing the basics. Tried in the first two games, didn't work out but came today. Important to get shape before the World Cup. It's all about building the confidence. Even the two games I didn't score, I was still feeling good. Want to keep on building till that first game. These are good signs that we don't have our full squad and still won 3-0 against South Africa."

4.44pm A 3-0 series victory for the hosts in their last official series before a home T20 World Cup. Both sides missed a few key players so overall they were missing equally strong players, however over this week, South Africa were totally outplayed with big-ish defeats in all three games: 28 runs, 16 runs, and today by eight wickets and 6.1 overs to spare.

Today, it was a strong bowling performance led by Shamar Joseph and Gudakesh Motie that kept South Africa down to 163. Rassie van der Dussen's fifty and Wiaan Mulder's contribution were the only positives today. With the ball, they failed to offer any control when Johnson Charles clubbed them to all parts in the powerplay. Charles hit WI's third-fastest T20I fifty and stand-in captain Brandon King continued with a solid 44 too. Kyle Mayers with 36 put the finishing touch.