THE West Indians with a sublime unbeaten innings by their opener Kraigg Brathwaite who with his unbeaten innings of 142 which also enabled him to enlist with those who have carried their bat through a completed innings deserve to be in a state of a possible victory if Pakistan continue to underperform as they have done in this Test so far.

Only an innings of incredible proportions and packed with tons of patience would enable them to escape a seemingly inevitable defeat. The cream of their batting has been squeezed into submission even before the lead that Jason Holder’s men held from the first innings.

Not an encouraging sign for the rest of Pakistan batting to find motivation unless a Brathwaite-like batting demonstration of single-minded display of power of concentration is put in to provide a corridor for escape and then also consolidation.

Complacency seldom gets you out of trouble. Unlike in the last two Tests, Pakistan’s performance with the bat has left much to be desired as most of the batsmen lost their wicket playing recklessly at loose deliveries.

Brathwaite’s brilliantly paced innings brought him his fifth Test hundred and the more you think of it the more you admire his gutsy, skilled and productive outing in the middle. Unflinching in the face of tumbling wickets and even when runs were hard to get, he showed no nerves or any urgency to go all-out to hit his team out of trouble.

Instead, he put his head down and rotated his innings to remain in charge.

All those in the history of this game have managed to carry their bat through having opened the innings in a Test surely must have had a similar temperament and tenacity to get into that league.

Over the years I have had a number of such innings which I covered. Three innings of Desmond Haynes from Barbados which included two against Pakistan, one in West Indies and another in Pakistan and one against England comes to mind, not forgetting of course two by our own Mudassar Nazar at Lahore against India in 1982 and one by Saeed Anwar at Kolkata when he made 188 not out in the first-ever Asian Test Championship.

It no doubt reminds me the feat of Mudassar’s father Nazar Mohammad who 64 years ago carried his bat through the innings and scored 124 not out against India in his country’s only second Test in 1952 at Lucknow. I can assure you I was not a witness then.

Pakistan had then won the Test by an innings and many runs to register their first Test win.

Here at Sharjah Brathwaite will have to wait if his performance would bring a near result.

From 1889 when the first man in history of Tests Bernard Tancred of South Africa carried his bat through at Cape Town against England until now there have been a number of such recorded achievements. Previous to Brathwaite’s innings the last to do was also a South African Dean Algar against England last year.

West Indians look a lot rosier than they have been so far on this tour despite setbacks and this innings of their opener may keep them in good stead in the end.

Published in Dawn November 2nd, 2016