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McLaren stars for Proteas

North Sound - Ryan McLaren captured five wickets as South Africa cruised to a 13-run win over West Indies in their Twenty20 international at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in North Sound, Antigua on Wednesday.

Seamer McLaren returned the superb figures of five for 19 off 3.5 overs as the visitors bowled the home side out of 123 in 19.5 overs in reply to South Africa’s 136 for seven.

McLaren became only the fourth bowler to capture five wickets in a T20 international as the Windies lost wickets at regular intervals during their innings.

Kieron Pollard top-scored for the home-side with 27 while the next best score was 20 from Dwayne Bravo.

McLaren stuck in his first over when he had Andre Fletcher (0) caught behind by keeper AB de Villiers before the bowler removed the dangerous Chris Gayle (14) caught at long-on.

McLaren returned to the attack later in the innings to bowl Pollard before he had Darren Sammy (17) stumped.

Fittingly McLaren wrapped up the innings when he had Sulieman Benn (4) caught at long-off.

The Proteas would have been pleased with McLaren’s performance as he was not included in the World Twenty20 squad while the experiment of playing AB de Villiers as keeper paid off as he completed two catches and two stumpings.

Off-spinner Johan Botha turned in an impressive display as he captured two for 19 off four overs but the South Africans would be concerned by the 11 wides that they sent down.

Earlier, the Proteas owed their total to a gritty half-century from Jacques Kallis.

On a two-paced wicket which made batting difficult Kallis showed all his class to score 53 off 45 deliveries with his knock including one four and three sixes.

West Indies won the toss and elected to field and South Africa’s batsmen were forced to deal with deliveries that had a propensity to either shoot along the ground or spit viciously off a length.

As a measure of how difficult scoring was it took the visitors until the sixth over before picking up a boundary.

The Proteas lost Loots Bosman (7), caught down the leg side off a delivery from speedster Jerome Taylor, before Kallis and Graeme Smith combined for a second-wicket stand of 73 off nine overs.

Smith weighed in with 37 off 31 balls before he was stumped after attempting to reverse sweep left-arm spinner Nikita Miller.

Smith’s departure heralded the start of a collapse from the Proteas as they lost six wickets for the addition of just 39 runs.

Kallis fell shortly after Smith when he tried to hoist medium-pacer Pollard over deep square leg only for the batsman to be caught on the fence.

Fast bowler Kemar Roach then showed how dangerous he can be as he claimed the wickets of JP Duminy (0) and Botha (0) in the space of three balls with Botha falling to a spiteful delivery that he gloved to keeper Andre Fletcher.

De Villiers (11) was the only other batsman to reach double figures and he departed in the 18th over when he was caught at long-off to give Pollard his second wicket.

Roach, who conceded 10 runs off his first over, ended with two for 25 off four overs while Pollard picked up two for 22.

Teams

West Indies
- Chris Gayle (capt), Andre Fletcher (wk), Ramnaresh Sarwan, Narsingh Deonarine, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy, Sulieman Benn, Jerome Taylor, Nikita Miller, Kemar Roach.

South Africa - Graeme Smith (capt), Loots Bosman, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers (wk), JP Duminy, Alviro Petersen, Ryan McLaren, Johan Botha, Roelof van der Merwe, Dale Steyn, Charl Langeveldt.
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