South Africa beat West Indies

South Africa captain Graeme Smith tries to hit West Indies spinner Suleiman Benn out of the park during the Twenty20 World Cup Super Eight match at the Kensington Oval on Saturday.

Strong contenders South Africa inched closer to a semi-final berth after a convincing 20-run victory over giant-killers West Indies.

The South African innings began on a brisk note, with the experienced duo of Smith and Jacques Kallis finding the boundaries easy to come by against the West Indies pacemen, who were a trifle erratic in their opening spells.

Smith set the tempo by clobbering Fidel Edwards for two consecutive boundaries in the second over of the match while Kallis also showed his aggressive intent by hammering Jerome Taylor for 16 runs in the next over.

The South Africans, riding on a rollicking 55 from Herschelle Gibbs, first compiled a competitive 183 for seven and then restricted the West Indies to 163 for nine.

The 35-year-old Gibbs scored a 35-ball 55 which contained eight boundaries and a six.

Jerome Taylor disturbed Albie Morkel's stumps as the batsman tried to make some room and play the ball behind square but he missed it and the yorker hit the base of the off stump.

Top scorer Lendl Simmons reverse sweeps Van der Merwe on his way to a brilliant 77.

Simmons very nearly took the West Indies to the target with a blistering 50-ball 77 but did not get any support from the other top order batsmen.

His dismissal, with the score 133, off the final ball of the 16th over, signalled the beginning of the end for the West Indies, their last five wickets falling for 26 runs.

Dwayne Bravo (19 off 17) and Suleiman Benn (13 not out off 9) were the other Windies players to get into double figures.

South Africa play their last Group E Super Eight match against India on Tuesday.