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At exactly 3:45 p.m. yesterday, Ian Bradshaw emphatically punched the air with the type of emotion he has hardly ever displayed on a cricket field.

And with good reason. The embattled Barbados captain had just completed a maiden first-class century amidst the distraction of huge adversity.

Here was a player who had to endure calls for his removal as captain and his confidence would not have been helped by his indifferent form with both bat and ball all season.

He was also still trying to overcome a bout of influenza that nearly prevented him from playing.

'I wouldn't say it made batting difficult. There were times when I was a little short of breath and so forth,' he told NATIONSPORT. 'It was annoying, but I got through it. I had to. I just had to bat through it.'

The state of the game, too, was depressing for Barbados before his intervention. When Bradshaw was joined by the No. 10, Ryan Austin, a teenager in only in his second first-class match, all hope appeared lost with Barbados reeling on 158 for eight in response to England A's imposing first innings total of 444.

When stumps were drawn at the end of yesterday's penultimate day, Barbados still faced a big assignment to avoid their first defeat of the tournament, but Bradshaw's hundred and the support role of Austin and Corey Collymore went a long way in mounting a revival.

The way in which Bradshaw celebrated his hundred suggested that the 26-year-old appeared to have been relieved of a major burden. After all, his last three innings included two ducks and he came into the match with only three expensive wickets to his name. His place was under threat, some said.

'When I went out there to bat, I wasn't thinking along those lines,' Bradshaw said after a responsible innings that lasted three hours and included 15 fours off 184 balls.

'Courtney (Browne) was in. I was just looking to support him and bat as long as possible. I didn't have a lot of runs behind me, so I just tried to keep it simple.'

As the innings progressed, he abandoned some of those simple things and went after the bowling with a couple of commanding strokes that included drives, cuts and pulls. Along the way, he had to contend with several raucous appeals, most of them coming from tall fast bowler Alex Tudor.

When Barbados were dismissed just before 4 p.m., their final total was 250, with 92 of those coming with the support of Austin and Collymore.

The captain, who batted like someone in his 100th and not tenth first-class match, lauded their contributions.

Austin, an opening batsman at Under-15 level, joined his captain when he was only 30, but the 19-year-old was never ruffled by the vocal Englishmen and tenaciously survived for nearly two hours in making six off 77 balls.

'Austin batted extremely well. He more encouraged me than I encouraged him. He was very, very determined and I was impressed by his attitude.'

'The plan, as I told Ryan, was that we had to stay there and bat for as long as possible. Once we didn't take any chances, it would have been difficult for them to dislodge us,' the captain said.

When Austin was bowled by a ball from Tudor that kept low, Bradshaw was 77, but Collymore did not let him down. The tail-ender batted for 45 minutes to allow his captain to reach the treasured landmark.

With a first innings lead of 194, England 'A' duly enforced the follow-on and immediately gained the scalp of Philo Wallace to a smart diving return catch by Johnathan Lewis.

Adrian Griffith and Sean Armstrong, however, batted through the last hour to give Barbados a fighting chance of saving the match.

They start today trailing the visitors by 167 with nine wickets intact and the knowledge that they need to bat for most of the day to deny the visitors their second win in four matches.

Can Barbados save the match?

'Yes we plan to,' replied Bradshaw.. 'The guys are very determined..'

Among the batsmen who missed out in the first innings were the overnight pair of Roland Holder and Ryan Hinds. They started nicely in resumption with Barbados on 71 for three, but both were gone within the first hour.

© The Barbados Nation