Kolkata: In a world where Test specialist batting is being consigned to a bygone era, time has admirably preserved an exception named Kraigg Brathwaite. Poised to play his 100th Test for West Indies on Wednesday, the 32-year-old has never played a professional T20 game, not even at domestic level. And just 10 ODIs.
West Indies opener Kraigg Brathwaite during the first Test against Australia at the Perth Stadium in December, 2022. (Calistemon/Wikimedia Commons)
Even Cheteshwar Pujara has featured in 70 T20s, including 29 IPL matches. Not Brathwaite, which is odd considering the times, more so because he is from a region that has witnessed most of its brightest talent give up on Test cricket for the riches of T20.
Exactly why Brathwaite never played T20 was never clear, but so rapid was his rise through the ranks that it was probably deemed a question best left unanswered. First-class debut at 16 and a first call-up to the West Indies Test squad at 17, Brathwaite was earmarked for this format very early in his career. Be it the 122 on debut for the U-15 team or 73 on first-class debut for Barbados when he was still a Combermere high school student, Brathwaite offered a curious change to the narrative of West Indies power-hitters not caring about defence.
This was also a time when top stars of West Indies led by Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard were turning down central contracts and signing up for IPL. Instead of negotiating with them, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) was keen on developing a Test specific roster with Shivnarine Chanderpaul as its leader. Brathwaite was given a development contract for this squad.
He scored 0 in each of his first three Tests but a 212-ball 63 at Delhi in his fourth alerted us to Brathwaite’s grit. His style wasn’t flamboyant, and not always did he play great innings, but Brathwaite was synonymous with playing knocks of substance, doing the dirty work as opener. It enhanced his reputation as a dogged leader rather than just a batter. Like at the famous Leeds victory in 2017 when he scored 134 and 95 Shai Hope stole the accolades because he hit a century in both innings.
His batting was also seminal in the drawn Bridgetown Test against England in 2022, notching 160 and 56 not out but more significantly playing out 673 balls, eclipsing Brian Lara’s record (582 balls) for the most deliveries faced by a West Indies batter in a Test. Lara, of course, is remembered for that epic 400 in Antigua but what Brathwaite had achieved was no less transformative for West Indies cricket. For the first time in over a decade, West Indies had shown they could fight out a draw on a fifth day pitch in waning light. And Brathwaite was considered an outlier for choosing a road no one wanted to take.
For a whole year Brathwaite was playing ODIs for West Indies but that too stopped after 2017. Once asked why he never gave white-ball cricket another try, Brathwaite said: “It’s just unfortunate that every time we have a Test series it’s during our 50-over tournament. So, I don’t get an opportunity to perform in that format.”
It has turned out to be Test cricket’s gain. On Thursday, when he plays in the second Test against Australia in Guyana, he will become only the 10th Windies cricketer to play 100 Tests, a milestone Garry Sobers, Richie Richardson and Rohan Kanhai didn’t touch.
Only last year at Jamaica’s Sabina Park did Brathwaite eclipse Sobers’s record of playing 85 consecutive Tests, an occasion he used to reiterate his commitment to Test cricket. “I’m extremely thankful because in this generation there’s a lot of T10 and T20 cricket but Test cricket is the real test and at the end I will feel like I’ve done a really good job for the West Indies,” he was quoted as saying by windiescricket.com.
He has, almost single-handedly. After 99 Tests, his numbers stand at 5,943 runs at an average of 32.83 with 12 100s and 31 fifties.
Watching Brathwaite, by consent, isn’t a sensory experience by any stretch of imagination. Leaving the ball and trying the patience of the bowlers can’t be exhilarating in this day and age. But that shouldn’t hide from us the mind that has been working behind the scenes, orchestrating some colossal knocks of resistance that have allowed West Indies to put up a fight. 955 minutes at Barbados, 813 minutes against Sri Lanka in 2021, these are freakish reminders of the unsung hero Brathwaite has been opening the batting.
That average of 32.83 isn’t record book worthy but between 2014 and 2024, Brathwaite had also become one of only five openers worldwide to surpass 5,000 Test runs. It’s this commitment that will shine as Brathwaite plays his 100th Test. And, hopefully, some more down the road.
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