By Paresh Soni

One-day International, Centurion: South Africa 176-4 (34 overs) beat West Indies 175 (35.5 overs) by six wickets

Duminy played a high-class innings to register his best ODI score

JP Duminy's unbeaten 79 steered South Africa to a six-wicket win over West Indies in the opening one-day match.

In a game reduced to 36 overs because of rain, the Windies were 81-6 under murky skies but Darren Sammy's maiden fifty in one-dayers helped them to 175.

South Africa were struggling on 59-3 and behind Duckworth/Lewis calculations as rain again started falling steadily.

But Duminy's composed knock - his best in ODIs - helped make it 1-0 in the five-match series with 12 balls left.

It continued the Proteas' winning run after their Twenty20 triumph on Friday, which followed a 2-1 Test series success.

606: DEBATE How good was Duminy's knock?

Graeme Smith had no hesitation in fielding in overcast conditions, and Dale Steyn swung and seamed the ball at pace, but the visitors did not help themselves with a succession of poor shots.

Marlon Samuels played on trying to slash away an Andre Nel delivery that was too straight and Shivnarine Chanderpaul cut a wide long-hop from Nel straight to point.

Stand-in skipper Dwayne Bravo and Denesh Ramdin then edged behind with injudicious swishes to leave the Windies in need of something dramatic.

Runako Morton hit 41 but Sammy provided the fireworks with a flat six off Albie Morkel through extra-cover and two leg-side maximums off the seamer in the penultimate over, which went for 22.

Nel struck twice as the Windies batsmen threw their wickets away

The innings ended shambolically, with Sammy and Ravi Rampaul run out and Daren Powell bowled off his pads by Steyn, but the final total represented a tremendous recovery.

Indeed, West Indies were in the ascendancy when Smith drove flat-footedly at Powell's sixth ball to play on, and AB de Villiers skied a pull off Fidel Edwards to make it 4-2.

Jacques Kallis (24) and Duminy steadied the ship with some crisp drives and pulls.

However, with the rain increasing Kallis top-edged a pull off Rampaul and wicket-keeper Ramdin stepped back five yards to take the catch.

Amid all this, Duminy was still seeing the ball clearly enough to drive Rampaul over long-on for six.

My heart was pumping but we got there in the end JP Duminy

Bravo brought back Edwards and Powell in a bid for wickets but runs began flowing as Justin Ontong (23) put on 59 with Duminy, who recorded only his second half-century in 21 one-day internationals.

Stand-in Windies skipper Bravo, who had said beforehand that he would not bowl until the third match of the series because of a side strain, decided a bold gamble was required.

He introduced himself into the attack and promptly took a breathtaking return catch when Ontong got a leading edge from a short-pitched delivery.

Duminy kept his cool, though, and once the showers passed so did the danger.

Mark Boucher (26no) helped him comfortably keep up with the required run-rate by cleverly finding the gaps in an unbroken stand of 58.

"My heart was pumping but we got there in the end and it worked out quite nicely."

"We were under pressure a bit with the bat but full credit to JP and this innings will go a long way to giving him confidence for the future."

"We gave it our best shot and there are some nice signs for us.

"It's very important to have all-rounders and Sammy has been very good with bat and ball."