West Indies openers Kraigg Brathwaite and Tagenarine Chanderpaul broke a long-standing record for Test opening partnerships on Monday’s third day of the first Test against Zimbabwe at Bulawayo as the West Indies went to lunch on 374-2.

Resuming from their overnight score of 221-0 with Brathwaite on 116 and Chanderpaul on 101, the pair took their opening partnership to 336 before Brathwaite was trapped leg before wicket to Wellington Masakadza for 182. The score broke the record for the best-ever West Indies opening partnership of 296 made against England that had been held by the West Indies iconic opening pair of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes that had stood since 1990.

They also became the first opening pair to bat in excess of 100 overs in an innings in the 21st century only the second opening pair to face over 600 deliveries in a Test innings, falling just short of the record held by Sri Lanka’s Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya, who had played 114.2 overs against Pakistan.

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In reply to CaribbeanCricket.com
While I congratulate Chanderpaul for his 206 not out I sure don’t congratulate them for their record. They were much too defensive and that will cost us the first test. Combined they scored 388 runs but it took them 779 deliveries, less than two runs an over. It was a record of boring and negative cricket and if this is a sign of how they are going to bat then expect more drawn games and our middle order to be placed under a lot of pressure

In reply to Sylobaby

What? Their combined strike rate was 50, which isn't bad for test cricket and was higher than their career strike rates. The 91 overs lost to rain and the slow surface and outfield played the biggest part in making the draw the favourite result.

In reply to Seechy

Well seems like Zimbabwe feel they can still win by declaring with a deficit of 69. Meanwhile West Indies continues to play for a draw by scoring 21/0 in 13 overs of defensive cricket a run rate of 1.61. I believe ICC should consider punishing teams for slow batting rate just as teams are fined for slow over rate