Gayle hit 317, his highest Test score, to propel West Indies to 565 for five, replying to South Africa's first innings total of 588 for six declared, when stumps were drawn on the penultimate day of the match.

Gayle captured the spotlight when he turned a delivery off Abraham de Villiers' part-time medium-pace into the mid-wicket region to join the elite group of West Indies batsmen with Test triple hundreds.

He was finally dismissed about half hour after tea, when he top-edged a lazy cut at a short, rising ball to slip to become the last of three wickets for 87 runs from 18 overs for Monde Zondeki, who has been South Africa's most successful bowler.

The 25-year-old Gayle showed wonderful powers of concentration throughout a marathon 10-1/2 hours of batting during which time he smote 37 fours and three sixes from 483 balls.

By the close, West Indies captain Shivnarine Chanderpaul, with whom Gayle added 149 for the fourth wicket, was also looking to enter the record books.

Chanderpaul has struck seven fours from 210 balls in five hours and was undefeated on 82, eyeing his 13th Test hundred and second for the series, and looking to become the seventh batsman in the match to reach triple figures.

Only three times in the history of Test cricket have there been seven hundreds in a Test.

Chanderpaul, however, will rest easy in the knowledge that West Indies comfortably avoided the follow-on target of 389, and batted themselves into a position from which they should deny the South Africans, who have already wrapped up the series, a record hattrick of Test wins on the road.

Resuming on 184, Gayle was called upon to deal with the second new ball when South Africa called for it immediately, and almost did not survive it.

Gayle, on 185, playing off the backfoot, was deceived by the bounce and movement of a delivery from Shaun Pollock and inside-edged the ball just to the right of wicketkeeper Mark Boucher.

He kept his nerve and reached his double hundred, when playing a backfoot defensive shot to a rising delivery from Ntini, he edged just wide of second slip and ran two, and eventually eliminated his previous highest score of 204 scored against New Zealand at St. George's three years ago.

South Africa, however, got back into the match, when Zondeki, the target for much of the punishment Gayle handed out, removed century-maker Ramnaresh Sarwan for 127 and Lara for four.

Lara, with 196 and 176 behind him in the two previous Tests, never looked settled. He took 21 balls before he got off the mark with a square drive for four off Zondeki, who soon put him out of his misery, when he had him caught behind trying to run a rising ball down to third man.