SA take lead to Barbados

St Kitts - The Proteas' take a 1-0 series advantage to Barbados for the final Test match after the second Test match against the West Indies at Warner Park, St. Kitts, finished in a predictable draw on Tuesday.

It means that the West Indies can no longer win the series but Proteas captain Graeme Smith is determined to finish the tour on a positive note with a convincing series win.

Smith said: "We have had an excellent tour of the West Indies so far,and it would be a pity not to finish it off on a high note. We did not have an even contest between bat and ball in this one which made it very difficult to get a result.

"But, judging from what we have seen in Barbados during the recent ICC World Twenty20 there is a good chance of having a surface with reasonable bounce there.

"I don't believe we have lost any momentum by drawing here. Nearly all our batsmen showed good form and that is the one positive we can take out of this match."

The Proteas had little difficulty negotiating their way through the final day's play and, when play was called off 70 minutes before the official close, they had taken a lead of 232 with seven wickets still in hand.

By that stage Jacques Kallis and AB de Villiers had shared an unbroken century stand for the fourth-wicket and there was no reason why both of them could not have gone on to get their second centuries of the match.

Apart from one near run out scare for De Villiers neither batsmen was really troubled and Chris Gayle had in any case switched to using part-timer Brendan Nash from the one end.

Shivarine Chanderpaul was named man-of-the-match for his first innings century but it could easily have gone to any of the other four centurions or indeed to Morne Morkel whose four wickets was probably worth a double century in the conditions.