West Indies openers Kraigg Brathwaite and Tagenarine Chanderpaul broke a plethora of records with a mammoth stand during the first Test of the two-match series in Zimbabwe.
Until Chanderpaul’s debut in Perth in November 2022, Brathwaite and Adrian Barath were the last West Indian openers to put on a century partnership away from home – against India in Mumbai in 2011/12.
Brathwaite and Chanderpaul put on 116 in Perth. And in Chanderpaul’s third Test match, at the Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo, the pair continued to bat. And bat. And bat.
En route, Chanderpaul became the first non-Kraigg-Brathwaite opening bat since Chris Gayle in 2013/14 to score a Test hundred for the West Indies. Over the same period, Brathwaite had made 12 hundreds – including one in the same innings.
By reaching the milestone, Brathwaite and Chanderpaul became the ninth pair of West Indian openers to score hundreds in the same Test innings. In the 21st century, Gayle and Kieran Powell are the only other West Indian opening pair to have achieved this.
Chanderpaul also became the 12th son of a Test centurion to score a Test hundred (the list includes active cricketers Stuart Broad, the Marsh brothers Shaun and Mitchell, Tom Latham, and Hamish Rutherford). Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s 30 Test hundreds are now the most by a Test cricketer whose son is a Test centurion.
Brathwaite and Chanderpaul climbed up the list of highest scores by West Indian openers until they eclipsed the 298 added by Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes (against England in St John’s in 1990) to set a new first-wicket record for the West Indies.
The partnership eventually ended at 336. They batted together for 685 balls – a delivery short of longest opening stand in Test history* of 686 between Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya against Pakistan in Kandy, back in 2000. Atapattu and Jayasuriya had added 335, a run fewer than Chanderpaul and Brathwaite.
This is now the fifth-highest partnership for West Indies for any wicket, and the highest since Garry Sobers and Frank Worrell added 399 for the fourth wicket against England at Bridgetown in 1959/60. The record is still the second-wicket stand 446 between Conrad Hunte and Sobers, against Pakistan in Kingston in 1957/58.
The pair eclipsed the 214-run opening stand between Gayle and Daren Ganga at the same venue in 2001 – the previous record stand for any wicket for the West Indies against Zimbabwe.
This is also the highest opening stand by any side against Zimbabwe. Brathwaite and Chanderpaul went past Atapattu and Jayasuriya’s 281 in Harare in 2004.
However, the record for any wicket both against and in Zimbabwe is still the 438 added by Atapattu and Kumar Sangakkara for the second wicket in Bulawayo in 2004.
Brathwaite eventually fell for 182, his second-highest Test score after the 212 against Bangladesh in Kingstown in 2014/15. He had never before reached 150 away from home. The 18 fours were the most he hit in a Test innings.
This is the ninth-highest opening stand in the history of Test cricket. The last partnership bigger than this was the world record of 415, between Graeme Smith and Neil McKenzie against Bangladesh at Chittagong in 2007/08.
Chanderpaul went past Brathwaite not too long afterwards. Brathwaite’s 182 is now the joint fifth-highest among openers without the highest score in a Test innings.
At 192, he went past Brian Lara’s 191 in Bulawayo in 2003/04, the highest score by a West Indian against Zimbabwe. Brathwaite’s 182 is third on the list.
When Tagenarine reached 200, the Chanderpauls became the second father-son pair, after Hanif and Shoaib Mohammad, to score double hundreds in Test cricket. He soon went past his father’s highest Test score of 203 not out – achieved twice.
*where data is available
