Ending his poor form, West Indian captain Brian Lara scored his 37th career One-Day fifty, as he and Keith Arthurton (who made an unbeaten 40) took their team past India's 242. The West Indies won the 50-overs game with three overs to spare.
Fast bowler Merv Dillon, who captured the key Indian wickets of Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin cheaply, was declared Man-Of-The-Match.
The match began with a smash for West Indies with opener Philo Wallace slamming the first ball, off Javagal Srinath, for six. Wallace scored 39 off 45 balls and with Shivnaraine Chanderpaul brought up the West Indian 100 in just 15 overs. Chanderpaul scored a run-a-ball 74, including 10 fours and a six.
Earlier, a stroke-filled 83 by Saurav Ganguly and a hurricane 73 by Robin Singh helped India reach 242 for six wickets. Singh battered West Indian bowlers in the last lap of the Indian innings in the 63 balls he faced, helping prop up his team's score which tottered after a string of dismissals.
India lost star batsman Tendulkar with just 14 runs on the board, when he was caught brilliantly by Carl Hooper in the slips after making eight.
Another setback followed when Indian captain Azharuddin was trapped leg-before on a delivery from Dillon that sharply dipped and caught the batsman on the back foot.
Ganguly and Rahul Dravid then repaired the damage, punishing spinners Hooper and Arthurton. But Ganguly threw away his wicket at 83 when he needlessly stepped out to a wide ball and was stumped, 17 runs away from what would have been his fifth One-Day century. He hit eight fours and two huge sixes.
Dravid and Ajay Jadeja fell in quick succession, but Singh took charge with some huge hits, including three sixes.
Dillon was well supported by new ball partner Reon King, who conceded only 26 runs in his 10 overs on his One-day debut.
West Indies manager Clive Lloyd said that although South Africa would be no pushovers, he was confident his team could make 260 runs and defend them.
``We know that we have to be near a hundred per cent if we want to beat them. If we continue to play like we have done in the last couple of games we should,'' he said.
West Indies will play South Africa in a Test and One-Day series after the Wills Cup and Lloyd acknowledged the winner of today's final might gain a psychological advantage.
``We will like to draw first blood here and we realise the importance of this game. We would want to adopt the trend from here,'' he said. ``We have worked hard, trained hard, discussed a lot of cricket and we have been excellent.''