Batting with a struggling partner at the other end, he took almost exclusive responsibility of the scoring, putting his trust in a surface that has not earned it
Danyal Rasool26-Jan-2025Jannik Sinner was dismantling Alexander Zverev in the Australian Open final around the same time when Kraigg Brathwaite’s West Indies looked to be dismantling Pakistan. Perhaps that’s where the similarities ended. The tennis was played in front of an electric Melbourne night crowd in the summer, while the cricket was witnessed by a handful who ventured out under wintery Multan morning sunshine. The former saw the top two take each other on, while the latter featured the two sides who prop up the World Test Championship [WTC] table.Just as Sinner tormented Zverev with his umpteenth drop shot, Shan Masood and Mohammad Hurraira were playing all around straight deliveries to give West Indies the best possible start to the fourth innings, and therein lay a similarity. Supporters, broadcasters and analysts often tend to take the pitch out of the occasion when batters get out in this way because, they argue, it isn’t the spin that got them out, but the shot selection. That is as misleading as criticising Zverev for failing to dispatch Sinner’s drop shots; they are, after all very slow shots top players should be able to deal with.Yet, Zverev has to hedge deep behind the baseline because he understands the flip side of that drop shot is the extreme power Sinner can generate; what might happen is just as relevant to the end result as what actually happened. It is partly why 20 wickets fell on the first day in Multan when, isolated from a broader context, batters could have chosen better shots to the deliveries they eventually got out to. But on a surface where some balls barely rose above the ankles, others turned square and some spat high, it is little surprise when players make decisions they normally wouldn’t have on surfaces that do neither of those things early on in a Test.Related
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The first Test saw a higher degree of turn – not to mention inconsistent bounce – than either of the surfaces that played host to the last two England Tests, and the first day here was only a fraction lower. When West Indies walked out – more or less with a clean slate having extricated themselves from the oblivion of 38 for 7 on the first morning – they faced the unenviable task of refusing to let the demons in the pitch multiply in their minds. It can, in theory, be as simple as realising that all of a sudden there is no reason to fear a bully, but using that information to change one’s own behaviour can be an altogether different challenge.It is one that West Indies captain Brathwaite – whose soft-spoken demeanour belies the authority his words hold in a room – has been encouraging his charges to put into practice. “It was a difficult pitch to bat on, for sure,” he had said after West Indies lost the first Test. “Saying that, we also didn’t bat as well as we could. I think Alick [Athanaze, whose fourth-innings 55 was West Indies’ highest individual score in the first Test] showed us today how easy it can be. You’ve got to be braver in your shot selection.”Bravery in these conditions can be interpreted in different ways. For some, it is relentless attack in the hopes of stealing as many runs as possible before the pitch, or one’s technique, or bad luck, eventually lets them down. Others have deployed the sweep and reverse sweep in an attempt to neutralise the turn, even though the inconsistent bounce still renders them vulnerable.Brathwaite, though, treated this pitch as if it was a normal one rather than the potential minefield it truly was. He said after the first Test he had “never” in his career seen the kind of cracks he saw in Multan, a career that, now in its 98th Test, has seen its fair share of pitches.Kraigg Brathwaite kept the sweeps and reverse sweeps at bay in the second innings•Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty ImagesBatting with a struggling partner at the other end, he took almost exclusive responsibility for the run-scoring, putting his trust in a surface that has not earned it. He danced down the track in the fifth over to Sajid Khan. The shot was on, Sajid had baited him with the flight. But the steps he took out of his crease may well have been on a shaky ladder at the precipice of a skyscraper for how precarious a charge down the crease is here. He got close enough to the ball, made a clean enough connection, and helped himself to six.He would do this time and again; the straight-batted slog was his most productive shot, getting him 17 of his runs in seven deliveries. When playing on the onside, he used the conventional flick more than the sweep many West Indies batters have depended upon as a crutch; it brought him another 13 of his runs.Those who have watched him regularly over the years may be able to say more clearly whether this is how he usually bats, but it is not how he batted in much of this series. Sweeps and reverse sweeps made up a tiny percentage of his shots this innings – just 5 in 74 balls. In the first Test, he swept one of almost every four balls he faced, getting out in that fashion each innings including one where he tried to sweep Sajid Khan from well outside off stump. “You are not going to succeed here if the sweep is your only option,” ESPNcricinfo’s ball-by-ball commentary chastised at the time.Hovering on the precipice trying not to think of the consequences, Brathwaite was helping his side motor along, every run taking them further and further away from Pakistan’s grasp. Mikyle Louis’ dismissal was barely a footnote as he encouraged Amir Jangoo to bat the same way, and by the time the morning session was halfway through, West Indies sat atop that skyscraper at 92 for 1, more than 100 runs ahead with nine wickets still to go, and Brathwaite having got to his half-century.Brathwaite stepped away to the onside, and danced once more out of the crease. This time, Noman had deceived him in flight, and the pitch did the rest, ragging the ball away from the bat. The weight of his trust could be borne no longer, and the ladder was pulled away from beneath him. For Brathwaite, perhaps, this is what bravery looked like.
