Kraigg Brathwaite century for West Indies wipes out England advantage

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/apr/24/west-indies-england-second-test-kraigg-braithwaite

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The National Stadium was a vibrant place to be. For the second successive day the sun shone incessantly with no hint of the rain that had blighted the early part of the match. The party stand jumped to the soca music from the megawatt speakers, the Carib girls gyrated their stuff and the rhythm band on their drums maintained a steady beat that became almost hypnotic. There was a good attendance, too, and not just the England supporters who have been enjoying Caribbean life, for Grenada has embraced the match. In the hotels the staff talk enthusiastically and knowledgeably about the teams and the game and one stand, in the shade, was a sea of congregated local fans even on a work day. The final day, a Saturday, will be carnival here, so it is said.

Perhaps this would depend on how West Indies were faring, though, and by the close of the fourth day it could be said they were by no means out of the game. The home team were faced with a first-innings deficit of 165 after Joe Root scored an unbeaten 182, the highest score by an England batsman in the Caribbean since Dennis Amiss’s monumental 262 not out at Sabina Park 41 years ago. They lost an early wicket to Jimmy Anderson but then set about the England bowling with such verve that attack from England turned into defence and arrears were cleared with more than a dozen overs of the day remaining. At stumps they were 202 for two and in profit to the tune of 37.

Central to this was the opener Kraigg Brathwaite, who had been castled so spectacularly by Anderson in the first innings but who now played an innings of responsibility and maturity to make an unbeaten 101, his fourth Test hundred reached in the day’s penultimate over and greeted by the day’s biggest roar.

Around this fitted first of all Darren Bravo, who made 69 of the second-wicket stand of 142 which included some of the cleanest, crispest driving of the match. When he fell as Stuart Broad, pursuing a line outside off stump to an eight-one field loaded to that side, nibbled an offcutter away a shade and found the edge, Marlon Samuels took over. He will resume on 22.

How this game progresses on the final day depends largely on how the pitch holds up and what happens when England take the second new ball which will be due in five overs. The fact that a pitch that has seemed docile for four days can suddenly become capricious and ready to be exploited in the last one or two sessions of the final day is one reason why the proposal of the ECB chairman-elect, Colin Graves, that there should be four-day Tests with an increase in overs per day is wide of the mark.

It will, though, take something for this pitch to change character sufficiently for there has been no pace in it, little evidence of erratic bounce that might have eventuated from any indentations from the first day, no swing and hardly any turn to speak of. With an outfield the lushness of which would not disgrace the lawns at the Palace of Versailles, there is nothing to encourage reverse swing. The cricket had degenerated into a game of patience and there really is not the time for that now.

The England innings had been prolonged by a further 20 overs in which they added 91 for the last four wickets and it was largely a triumph for Root, a demonstration of mature batting from a man still only 24.

No one in the match, or even the series so far, has managed to time the ball with the consistent precision he managed from the start of his innings, when the umpires were replacing Ian Bell’s off stump into the deck, to the moment the last man, Jimmy Anderson, was dozily run out. It was the third such dismissal in the innings, something that has not happened to an England side in the first innings of a Test since the start of the last century.

There were milestones on the way. When Root reached 126 he had passed 2,000 Test runs, a landmark reached, for example, in three more innings than Jonathan Trott took, two more than Kevin Pietersen needed but in five fewer innings than Alastair Cook.

For this, the second phase of his innings as it were, he was at his best when marshalling a last-wicket stand of 32 with Anderson. He had already lost Jos Buttler (the pyrotechnics anticipated to be coming from Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes and Buttler produced 21 runs between them from 66 balls), Chris Jordan to the second run out of the innings and Stuart Broad, whose batting has now deteriorated to the point where he would make that of Monty Panesar look like Garry Sobers. By this time Root, in a shade over five hours’ batting,had already passed 150 for the fifth time in his short career. Anderson knows how to hold an end up and knew his support role here.

Root began to farm the strike, turning down long singles but compensating with some hefty strokes. Devendra Bishoo, who was to concede 177 runs in the innings from 51 overs, was hit straight for six and slog-swept for another, while Jason Holder was clipped powerfully over midwicket to the rope.

If the run-out was bizarre, Anderson ambling in to the crease either oblivious to the ball coming to his end or believing it had cleared the bowler by the stumps, then it left Root unbeaten which was only right.

He now has a batting average, from 24 matches, of a shade over 57, with his last four centuries, worth 200, 154, 149 and now 182, all unbeaten.

This was while batting unselfishly rather than for the red-inker as the players like to call a not-out innings. He is a greedy young man – or a hungry one at least – and a team man through and through.