West Indies captain Hayley Matthews has rued the lack of dynamism in her side’s batting despite their three-run win over Pakistan in the Women’s Twenty20 World Cup Sunday.
The Caribbean side could only muster 116 for six from their 20 overs, opener Rashada Williams top scoring with 30 from 34 deliveries and Shemaine Campbelle (22) and Matthews (20) playing supporting roles.
However, no other batsman passed 11 as West Indies once again failed to really spark with the bat.
“We would like to score a bit quicker than that, but I mean, at the end of the day, it’s cricket,” Matthews told a post-match media conference. “Obviously, there’s some areas that we definitely need to improve on and that’s going to be one of them. We haven’t finished as well as we would like to this entire World Cup with the bat, but now is a great opportunity for us to go and regroup.
“We keep saying we have a lot of young inexperienced players within the team, and experiences like this are just going to help us learn more and more, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing moving forward.”
West Indies racked up 135 in their opening seven-wicket loss to England before gathering 118 in their second match to India, when they suffered a six-wicket defeat.
They chased down 138 to beat Ireland with a ball to spare on Friday but their fluctuation continued against Pakistan with a meagre total after choosing to bat first at Boland Park.
“I think coming into this tournament – the scores we were putting up – the way we were batting wasn’t great,” explained Matthews. “And I think even though we have a lot of room to improve still, we would have seen some improvements throughout this tournament, which has been good to see. We still have a lot of progress that can be made, but I think this World Cup is definitely done and it’s doing a lot for the girls with their learning.
“So much learning has taken place within the dressing room and out on the field as well and we can only continue to hope that we’re moving in the right direction. “I think that’s our main goal right now and even within our losses, we just really tried to take all the positives out of it that we can learn from them.”
Despite the small total, West Indies produced a sterling effort in the field, Matthews leading the attack with a Player-of-the-Match two for 14 from four overs of off-spin.
Fellow off-spinner Karishma Ramharack and new-ball seamer Chinelle Henry also turned in miserly spells, before fast bowler Shamilia Connell managed to hold her nerve in the final over when Pakistan needed four runs from the final delivery to tie the contest.
“Defending 118, 119 is never, ever going to be easy, and the way that we really went out there and threw our bodies at the ball, the way our bowlers stepped up to the plate where we knew it was going to be a tough task, was just beautiful,” said Matthews.
“Not only to be a part of, but to watch the other girls do it as well and hold their own, was just a brilliant sight to see.”
The victory was the second in four games for West Indies, leaving them third in Group 2 on four points, behind leaders England (six points) and India (four points).
-CMC
