WINNING the third one-day international series tonight against the West Indies at the Windsor Park Stadium in Roseau, Dominica, the Proteas will know that the series will be in the bag with two matches to spare.

WINNING the third one-day international series tonight against the West Indies at the Windsor Park Stadium in Roseau, Dominica, the Proteas will know that the series will be in the bag with two matches to spare.

Winning both T20 matches and the first two one-dayers, the Proteas have seen the local crowds dwindling at the matches and South African captain Graeme Smith is anxious to see his team's winning ways continue.

"We have managed to beat the West Indies four times now, which will be quite tough for them to take. For us it's the opposite. The more we win the more confident we get, you become less tentative and you learn to close games down," Smith told Sowetan from the Caribbean.

In Monday's one-day game in Antigua, it was the batting prowess of Hashim Amla (92) and Jacques Kallis (85) that their innings of 300 was built around. The Proteas went on to win by 17 runs.

Amla, with his stylish stroke play, has wasted no time in settling into the team after being left out of the recently completed World Cup. Smith scored a satisfactory 37 runs off 52 balls. He said: "Physically I'm fully fit. I'm playing better with every game. It has not been easy to regain form in the Twenty20 environment but I'm batting well and a good innings is around the corner."

If the Proteas can wrap up the one-day series quickly it will be an ideal opportunity for the selectors to take a few chances and try some new combinations, particularly with the one-day World Cup just over a year away.