LONDON, 20 September 2004 — West Indies captain Brian Lara praised his side’s composure and discipline after they had successfully chased 247 to beat South Africa here at the Oval and win a place in the ICC Champions Trophy semi-finals next week. The West Indies reply was interrupted by Saturday’s rain and they resumed on 20-0. They passed their target with seven balls to spare.

Despite being behind the required run-rate for most of their innings the West Indies always had wickets in hand and a late onslaught from Ricardo Powell, who scored 16 from ten balls sealed the game.

“We won the crucial parts of the game,” said Lara. “On Saturday South Africa were 105 in 21 overs without losing wickets and I thought they were going to get 275 but Ryan Hinds came in and bowled ten overs for 35 which was very important.

“We lost two wickets but I was not worried about the run-rate. Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje were bowling well but then Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ricardo Powell came in and finished it in style.

“Having wickets in hand is what one-day cricket is all about and we knew we had guys like that in the shed to do the job so I was not worried about the situation. If we had lost a couple of quick wickets it would have got a bit dicey but we didn’t.”

For South Africa this was an 11th One-Day defeat in 12 matches and captain Graeme Smith blamed his side’s lack of runs in the middle overs of their innings for their failure to set a bigger target.

Man of the match Ramnaresh Sarwan (75), Lara (49) and Chanderpaul (51 not out) were the main contributors to the run chase but Powell’s knock tilted the match towards the West Indies. Powell came in at 214-4 with four overs left but turned the contest with two successive sixes off Shaun Pollock — full-tosses that he planted into the stands over mid-wicket.

Lara had stressed the importance of keeping wickets in hand on Saturday night but openers Chris Gayle and Wavell Hinds were soon back in the pavilion.

Thereafter the West Indies followed his instructions almost to the letter. Gayle attempted a pull from the last ball of the first over of the day from Pollock but edged the ball onto his stumps and Hinds was undone leg before by the former South African captain’s next delivery.

Lara came in on 33-2 and survived the hat trick ball pushing it to short mid-wicket before setting off for a run only for Pollock’s attempted shy at the stumps narrowly miss with the batsman well short of his ground.

Lara and Sarwan adopted a studious approach as Klusener bowled an impressively tight spell of 0-32 from ten overs whilst Jacques Kallis went for just 14 from four overs.

Once Lara had gone the onus fell on Sarwan and Chanderpaul to up the scoring rate.

The Guyanese pair did this impressively with the fourth 50 of the West Indian innings coming up in 37 balls. When Sarwan was bowled by Makhaya Ntini with 33 runs still needed for victory the game was in the balance but Powell’s fireworks ensured the West Indies got home.