Sharjah, United Arab Emirates: Captain AB de Villiers hit a robust century to lead South Africa to a thumping 117-run victory over Pakistan in the fifth and final one-day international and wrap up the series 4-1.
Pakistan's batting woes continued in the series as it was bowled out for 151 in 35.3 overs after de Villiers' 115 off 102 balls had powered the Proteas to a strong total of 268-7.
"Having clinched the series already, it is always difficult to get going," de Villiers said. "But when you wear this shirt (South Africa) and are playing at this level, then you have to play your best with the same intensity."
Having already won the series, South Africa rested three of its frontline bowlers -- Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Imran Tahir. Replacement bowler Wayne Parnell took 3-36 while fast bowler Vernon Philander (2-23) polished off the top order as only Sohaib Maqsood showed some grit with the top score of 53 -- his second successive half century.
Philander perfectly filled in the shoes of Steyn when he clean bowled Mohammad Hafeez, had Ahmad Shehzad caught at fine leg and then made it 17-3 by having Umar Amin leg before wicket inside the first 10 overs.
Captain Misbah-ul-Haq resisted for a while and added 39 runs before he mistimed a pull off Ryan McLaren.
Umar Akmal (30) was twice dropped on 19 and 27 but could not cash in on as JP Duminy had him lbw in his first over before Shahid Afridi (9) skied a return catch to Parnell as Pakistan went on to lose four wickets in space of three runs.
Sohail Tanvir and Junaid Khan added 20 runs for the last wicket before McLaren had Tanvir caught behind to end Pakistan woeful batting display with more than 14 overs to spare.
"We had no answers ... they outplayed us," Misbah said. "It's an old story now (batting collapses) ... we really have to think about that."
Earlier, De Villiers won his fourth toss of the series and made a splendid unbeaten century, hitting 10 fours and three sixes.
De Villiers upped the scoring tempo late in the innings when he added 83 runs off just 56 balls for the sixth wicket with McLaren (27) as the Proteas scored 114 in the last 10 overs against some wayward bowling.
De Villiers also became the fastest South African batsman to complete 6,000 runs in 153 ODIs and surpassed Gary Kirsten and Graeme Smith, who both took 160 matches to achieve the feat.
Pakistan did well through spinners Saeed Ajmal (3-45) and Afridi (1-37) in the middle of the innings despite Faf du Plessis (46) adding 62 off 96 balls with de Villiers.
Pakistan got a lucky breakthrough when Hashim Amla did not take a review after he was adjudged leg before wicket off tall fast bowler Mohammad Irfan as the television replays showed the ball had pitched outside the leg stump.
Quinton de Kock (34) hit the giant Irfan for four successive boundaries before Ajmal had him lbw and Duminy (2) was caught well close to the wicket by Shehzad.
Ajmal had David Miller caught off his own bowling in the powerplay to put South Africa on 150-5 before Pakistan lost the plot badly and surprisingly Hafeez (1-10) was not recalled after bowling three decent overs early in the innings.
De Villiers raised his half century off 70 balls when he pulled Ajmal's short delivery to midwicket for a six but needed just further 32 balls to score his remaining 65 runs with nine fours and two more sixes.
"Don't know what happened in the last 10-15 overs, but it shows that if you hang in there in international sport, you can get through a bad patch, so really enjoyed it at the end," de Villiers said.
After the two Twenty20s, both teams will meet in South Africa for two Twenty20s and three one-day internationals later this month.
