Johnson Charles slammed a remarkable second Twenty20 International (T20I) hundred to propel West Indies to their highest-ever T20I total, but South Africa made a mockery of the target by completing the highest-ever successful run chase in T20Is to pull off an astonishing six-wicket win here Sunday.
Opener Quinton de Kock smashed 100 from 44 balls as the hosts incredibly won with seven balls to spare in Centurion.
Johnson Charles had earlier hit a 39-ball century in West Indies’ 258-5, the fastest T20 ton for their men’s side.
The 34-year-old right-hander made his return to the team after a six-year absence and helped validate the selectors’ decision with a record century against South Africa at Centurion’s Supersport Park on Sunday.
“I think being out of the T20 side for six years, it’s definitely allowed me to do some soul-searching and see where I’ve been going wrong.”
“I’ve changed my game in that I’ve basically gone back to the basics. I made sure I had the basics on the down.”
“Just coming back it’s worked for me and going forward I’m just going to have to make sure that I keep the basics going. I think if I continue doing that I’ll continue having great innings.”
He was dropped from the squad in 2016, months after helping West Indies win the T20 World Cup in India, but Charles was picked for Australia’s disastrous T20 World Cup campaign.
He plundered triple figures off just 39 deliveries – the fastest-ever by a West Indies batsman and the joint-second-fastest-ever. He added 10 fours and 11 sixes to his record innings.
“On this field which is a small field, [you can play] conventional cricket shots. You know as a batter with such a good pitch and a small field, you don’t have to overhit the ball.”
“I think that is the key point all the batters had in the back of their minds.”
Commenting on the defeat of the match, he further emphasized,
“It wasn’t a good feeling to be honest. But we know it’s cricket and we expected at some point, if they jump us in the power-play, we expect to come back after the power-play and bring [the scoring rate] down.”
“But credit to the South African batters, they batted beautifully. They never gave us a chance to come back in the game. But having said that, I don’t think we executed our plans to the best of our abilities but once again, well played to the South African batsmen.”
The final match of the three-match Twenty20 series will be held at Wanderers today.