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Pretoria - West Indies captain Denesh Ramdin said his side had been unprepared as the Proteas spearhead Dale Steyn ripped their batting line-up apart with six wickets before lunch, on day four in Centurion on Saturday.
As it happened: South Africa v West Indies, Day 4
The visitors fell to a crushing innings and 220 run defeat against the hosts in the first Test.
Steyn left the field on Friday evening, after bowling just five balls suffering from a cramp and returned 45 minutes later. He however did not bowl again on the day.
On Saturday morning, it was a different story as Steyn was back to his fiery best.
He took four wickets in the space of 16 balls to spur the hosts to a comprehensive win as the West Indies were bowled out for 131 following-on. Steyn ended with figures of 6/34, his 25th five-wicket haul in Tests.
"We saw him go off the field last night, and we were not expecting to see him come and bowl this morning," Ramdin said in the wake of his side's heavy defeat.
"But knowing the type of player he is, he came out and bowled a brilliant spell to put his team in a winning position. He won the match for them."
As for the rest of the South African team, Ramdin said they did not have much footage of their number one ranked opponents.
"We didn't have much footage of their team, we just had the practice match [in Benoni last week] where we saw Stiaan van Zyl who is a very strong guy who scores square of the wicket."
Every batsman in the West Indies top four made it into the 30s in their first innings, but failed to go on after their good start as they failed to mount big partnerships to be bowled out for 201.
"The problem was our application. These guys are number one in the world, they bowl in very good areas and we need to be more disciplined in the batting department.
"Not go after wide balls, be smart. When guys go around the wicket we have to sway away from the short balls."
The West Indies started the match well reducing the hosts to 57 for three on day one, but a record fourth wicket partnership of 308 for South Africa between AB de Villiers (152) and captain Hashim Amla (208) took the game away for the Caribbean outfit.
"I believe the first day of the Test match was good where we had them three down for not many runs.
"Then we didn't assess things well after that, and AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla put on a brilliant partnership. I don't think we bowled in the areas that would create opportunities."
The West Indies had also started well with the bat in the first innings at 72 for no loss in reply to South Africa's 552 for five declared.
"As a captain I'm disappointed the way the guys got out in the first innings after getting starts.
"At 70 without loss, we were doing quite nicely and I thought the guys should've carried on. We need to improve on that going forward by batting for longer sessions."
Despite claiming just five South African wickets in the match, Ramdin was confident his side had the ability to bowl South Africa out.
"We do believe we have the resources to take 20 South African wickets.
"I just don't think we adjusted well enough to the pitches here, we bowled too short. The first couple wickets we got on the first morning the guys got caught behind.
"If we look back now we can see we bowled too short to AB and Hashim who scored many runs square of the wicket."
The West Indies team management said Narsingh Deonarine had been called in as a replacement for Assad Fudadin for the rest of the series, while Kemar Roach was ruled out of the Port Elizabeth Test starting on Boxing Day.
