West Indies beat South Africa by 34 runs at the Fatullah District Stadium to enter the Super League semi-finals of the Under-19 World Cup on Thursday.
In a match that was effectively a quarter-final, West Indies rose to the occasion with an impressive batting performance and comfortably outscored South Africa.
South Africa were soon made to rue the decision to put West Indies into bat. Openers Xavier Marshall and Tishan Maraj made a solid start, racing to 93 before both batsmen found themselves at the same end and Maraj sacrificed his wicket for 34.
Marshall took full advantage of the reprieve and confidently set about building a second crucial partnership with Lendl Simmons.
The pair took the score on to 161 in 30 overs by the time Simmons became the second run out victim on 30.
Marshall authoritatively progressed to his century before he too was run out for 106 from 133 balls.
A late scoring spree lifted the West Indies total to 284 for 6 from 50 overs.
No side had successfully chased down such a large total in the tournament before today but South Africa's top order made a positive start to the run-chase.
They reached 100 in 19.4 overs for the loss of only two wickets. But from that point onwards wickets began to fall at regular intervals and the run-rate gradually rose until there was only going to be one winner.
South Africa fought gamely to the end but their last man was out from the final ball of the 50th over with the score on 250.
Ominously for the West Indies' next opponents, paceman Ravi Rampaul who missed most of his team's group matches because of illness - found his rhythm for the first time in the tournament. Rampaul clean-bowled three South Africans to finish with the match's best figures of 3 for 41.
West Indies manager Roland Sampath was pleased with his side's positive attitude.
"We treated today like a quarter-final and we're all delighted to get through," he said.
West Indies captain Denesh Ramdin believes his team will have to improve if it is to progress to the final.
"We still need to work on our batting, our bowling and our fielding," said Ramdin.
"It was a good contest today. There was something in the wicket for the bowlers if they did well but there also runs there for batsmen if they didn't."
South Africa captain Divan van Wyk said that his team would benefit from their experiences in Bangladesh.
"We are obviously disappointed with today's result but we have learned a lot," said Van Wyk.
"This has been the best-run tournament I have ever been involved in."
West Indies will face the winner of tomorrow's match between England and Pakistan in the second Super League semi-final on Tuesday, March 2.
Brief Scores:
West Indies U-19: 284 for 6 in 50 overs (X Marshall 106, T Maraj 34, R der Merwe 2-30).
South Africa U-19: 250 all out in 50 overs (M Silwana 42, D Van Wyk 41, R Rampaul 3-41).
