Chris Gayle became the fourth West Indies batsman to hit a Test triple hundred on Monday, to make the way safe for the home team in the fourth and final Test against South Africa.
Gayle hit 317, his highest Test score, to propel West Indies to 565 for five, replying to South Africa's first innings total of 588 for six declared, when stumps were drawn on the penultimate day of the match.Gayle captured the spotlight when he turned a delivery off Abraham de Villiers's part-time medium-pace into the mid-wicket region to join the elite group of West Indies batsmen with Test triple hundreds.
Teammate and former West Indies captain Brian Lara heads the list, with his world record 400 not out last year and 375 in 1994 against England, both coming at the Antigua Recreation Ground.
Gayle also established a new mark for individual scores against South Africa, eclipsing the late, great Sir Don Bradman's 299 not out for Australia at Adelaide in the 1931-32 series against the Proteas.
He also had the privilege of scoring the 20th triple hundred in Test history before he was dismissed about half hour after tea, when he top-edged a lazy cut at a short, rising ball to slip to become the last of three wickets for 87 runs from 18 overs for Monde Zondeki, who has been South Africa's most successful bowler.
The 25-year-old Gayle showed wonderful powers of concentration throughout a marathon 10-1/2 hours of batting during which time he smote 37 fours and three sixes from 483 balls.
By the close, West Indies captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with whom Gayle added 149 for the fourth wicket, was also looking to enter the record books.
Chanderpaul has struck seven fours from 210 balls in five hours and was undefeated on 82, eyeing his 13th Test hundred and second for the series, and looking to become the seventh batsman in the match to reach triple figures.
Only three times in the history of Test cricket have there been seven hundreds in a Test.
Chanderpaul, however, will rest easy in the knowledge that West Indies comfortably avoided the follow-on target of 389, and batted themselves into a position from which they should deny the South Africans, who have already wrapped up the series, a record hat-trick of Test wins on the road.
Resuming on 184, Gayle was called upon to deal with the second new ball when South Africa called for it immediately, and almost did not survive it.
Gayle, on 185, playing off the backfoot, was deceived by the bounce and movement of a delivery from Shaun Pollock and inside-edged the ball just to the right of wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.
He kept his nerve and reached his double hundred, when playing a backfoot defensive shot to a rising delivery from Ntini, he edged just wide of second slip and ran two, and eventually eliminated his previous highest score of 204 scored against New Zealand at St. George's three years ago.
South Africa, however, got back into the match, when Zondeki, the target for much of the punishment Gayle handed out, removed century-maker Ramnaresh Sarwan for 127 and Lara for four.
Sarwan may have had visions of scaling similar heights to Gayle, but Ashwell Prince caught him low down at cover point off Zondeki after an hour. The former West Indies vice captain hit 14 fours and two sixes from 279 balls in just under 6-1/4 hours.
Sarwan's departure brought Lara, celebrating his 36th birthday on Monday, to the crease with many people expecting him to transport his rich vein of form to a ground that has seen two world record batting performances from him over the last decade.
Lara, with 196 and 176 behind him in the two previous Tests, never looked settled. He took 21 balls before he got off the mark with a square drive for four off Zondeki, who soon put him out of his misery, when he had him caught behind trying to run a rising ball down to third man.
West Indies were 405 for three at lunch, and Gayle, who had reached his milestone just prior to the break, and fellow left-hander Chanderpaul, kept South Africa wicketless in the afternoon period to carry the hosts to 490 for three at the break.
Gayle, who later complained of fatigue, played his lazy stroke and was dismissed, before South Africa gained a bonus wicket when Narsingh Deonarine was dubiously caught behind for four off the part-time off-spin of South Africa captain Graeme Smith.
South Africa lead the four-Test series 2-0, after winning the second Test at Port of Spain by eight wickets, and the third Test at Bridgetown by an innings and 86 runs.
The first Test at Georgetown ended in a draw.
Smith's side is also chasing two other bits of history. They are looking to give South Africa their 100th Test win, and their first hat-trick of victories on a road trip.
