Gritty Brathwaite passes stern test

If only weather interruptions in Test cricket were limited to the time it took for bursting clouds to relieve themselves. Instead, they extend to include both the build-up before and the clean-up afterwards.

The cost of a 10-minute shower can be an hour's play, overnight rain can wash out an entire morning and, if the heavens decide to have a sundowner, the third session can be sliced in half. When all that happens in the same game, everyone gets a little fidgety.

Faf du Plessis revealed that the South Africans use the time to play change-room cricket and have discovered their coach Russell Domingo's technique needs work. Allan Donald emerged to lob a rugby ball to the television director, the band at the ground played a few tracks that sounded like one, long, grey cloud and the sprinkling of scribes in the press box searched for something to fill their pages and stomachs.

There is something common to all those things - they are distractions. And distractions are what Kraigg Brathwaite has not allowed himself over the course of the last two days. He fought his way to his third Test century, and first away from home, through the kind of focus most 22 year-olds have not found the need for. His was an innings of four hours and 47 minutes at the crease, the better part of two days and what must have seemed like years of waiting in-between.

First, he had to survive the initial examination upfront, which tested his reflexes against the moving ball and an awareness of his off stump. On both counts, he passed on the third day. Brathwaite waited for South Africa's seamers to offer width and err in their lengths by going too short.

Importantly, he managed not to stagnate while doing that, even when he lost his opening partner and the No.3 batsman off successive balls. He brought up 50 in 74 balls, which impressed Marlon Samuels, his batting partner at the time. "They used to say he batted too slow but now he is scoring a little bit faster," Samuels said.

Then he survived a tricky period as the day wound down, when the ball had shown signs of reverse-swing and South Africa turned the heat up. Brathwaite had one moment of nervousness when he hit the ball back to Imran Tahir late on the third day but the legspinner could not hold on in his follow-through.

Overnight, Brathwaite and Samuels regrouped and Samuels put to his partner the possibility that they could save the game: "I knew I could rely on a guy like Kraigg to be patient because he is a very patient person. As long as we can put up a record-breaking partnership, it would augur well for us to save the game and take it to a draw."

Easy. Except when Morne Morkel is steaming in, with blood on the brain and a field in place to accept the dripping.

When play eventually got underway on the fourth afternoon, Morkel had decided on a plan to unsettle Brathwaite by forcing him to fend the ball off his ribs and into the hands of either Temba Bavuma or Faf du Plessis at short leg and leg gully respectively. Sometimes in calculated fashion, at other times with a bit of luck and a lot of awkwardness, Brathwaite managed to get the ball between them or past them. "You don't know where to put the guys. You can't put them everywhere," Morkel said. "We were working towards that sort of dismissal but their shot selection was quite good. They waited for a shortish length and didn't try anything tricky."

With Imran Tahir handing out late Christmas presents in the form of full tosses, Brathwaite had some release, too. Only once, when he reached 90 and Steyn had started replicating the tactic, did he almost fall into the trap. The ball caught the shoulder of Brathwaite's bat and ballooned over to du Plessis at second slip who back-pedalled but got to it and then spilled it while trying to regain balance.

His century was there for the taking and it was perhaps fitting that it came off an uncertain stroke to a short ball, because that was the stroke that encapsulated what his innings was about: grit and grind.

That he was able to do both so well for so long can only be good news for West Indies' future. Brathwaite is only 16 Tests into his career and has already enjoyed a breakthrough year. In 2014, he scored three centuries, of which one was a double, and the most recent one was scored in a country that is regarded as one of the most difficult for a batsman to prosper.

He negotiated conditions, the competition offered by the attack spoken of as the best in the world, and the clouds with class and composure.

"He is a very strong person mentally. It's definitely showing in his game," Samuels said. "It's good to have an opening batsman who is showing determination."

If he can do it again in the second innings, West Indies will have a reason to celebrate more than the weather in Port Elizabeth.