Steyn remover sees another Windies batting collapse

First, Marlon Samuels looked like the hero of the fourth day's play in the third Test between SA and West Indies at Newlands yesterday.

Then Shivnarine Chanderpaul put up his hand ever so painstakingly. But, in the end, Dale Steyn tripped that light fandango. Or did Simon Harmer steal everybody's thunder?

Steyn grabbed two wickets in two balls, later adding another, while Harmer finished with 4/82. Steyn and Harmer claimed identical match figures of 7/153, and together did much to limit the Windies' lead to 123 runs.

West Indies, who resumed on 88/2, were dismissed for 215 in their second innings. They lost their last six wickets for 13 runs in 47 catastrophic deliveries.

At stumps, SA were 9/1 after Alviro Petersen found a way to angle a delivery from Sulieman Benn onto his stumps.

The closest the visitors came to mounting a partnership that might have averted the 2-0 series loss that, given today's forecast for clear skies, would seem to be very likely, was when Samuels and Chanderpaul hung tough to share 87 runs for the fourth wicket.

For almost four hours Samuels took his responsibility on the chin. He was hit in the ribs by Steyn and edged Morné Morkel just short of the slips.

But he undid all his hard work when he holed out to off-spinner Harmer for 74. With that, Samuels' boast after he scored 101 in the drawn second Test at St George's Park - "I don't think any spinner should bowl to me and dictate terms" - haunted him all the way back to a dressing room that would not have received him kindly.

"That was the moment that everything fell away," Windies coach Stuart Williams said.

Morkel said: "We knew that if we could hang in there and break that partnership, the history of Newlands is that a cluster of wickets could fall. We just needed to break the door down."

That done, Steyn struck his killer blows. He bowled Jermaine Blackwood with a wicked away swinger to end his 20th over and, to start his 21st, had Denesh Ramdin caught at square leg.

But it was Chanderpaul's innings and cruel dismissal that will linger in the memory. Like Samuels, he had his moments. An edge off Morkel to the fourth ball he faced fell centimetres from gully, he referred successfully after being given out caught behind for 10 off Steyn, and he was dropped on 33 by AB de Villiers off Harmer.

He batted for 203 minutes and faced 113 balls for his 50 , but his innings was ended by a throw from gully by Temba Bavuma, 16 years Chanderpaul's junior.