By Kimberley Cummins
The West Indies women’s dismal performance in last night’s ICC Women’s World Cup semifinal has unquestionably demonstrated how much more support the Caribbean side needs.
This was one of the main points Cultural Ambassador Stedson Red Plastic Bag Wiltshire advanced as he called for structures to be developed in a systematic way to aid the on-field efforts of the women.
On Tuesday night Australia obliterated West Indies by 157 runs to advance their chances at retaining the women’s title. Alyssa Healy struck 129 from 107 deliveries and paired with Rachael Haynes in a 216-run opening stand to help Australia make 305-3. On the other hand, West Indies could only amass 148 runs, 48 coming off the bat of skipper Stafanie Taylor, with both Deandra Dottin and Hayley Matthews adding 34 each. The rest of the batting flopped completely.
“I am happy that they were able to make semi-finals, it is always good to see them on the world stage. I am still proud of them but we have a lot of work to do. . . . If we really want to develop cricket, we must first of all appear as a nation that actually embraces women’s cricket across the board,” he told Barbados TODAY.
This is why Wiltshire, who represented Barbados at youth cricket in 1980 and played Division One cricket from 1979 until 200, proposed the systematic establishment of a women’s league as well as the incorporation of more females at the club level.
“Anything that is pelt together may stand up for a while and may look good for a while but at the end of the day, the base of it is not strong because a structure wasn’t conceptualized. That isn’t rocket science. It is like every year we have a so-called Emancipation Day and people dress up in African garb and we have an African month. That is all well and good but . . . we have to systematically inculcate and instill our African values and African appreciation day in and day out if we are serious. Likewise, all I am saying, imagine, we have a West Indies team, we have a Barbados team, we have a Trinidad team, but we don’t have club teams – where is the development? For some reason we want to wait until we run out of road to walk on . . . to do these things. Why can’t we be proactive?” he asked.
While there is a team that plays in the local Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) competition, Wiltshire believed a women’s league would augur well not only to hone the existing talents but attract greater numbers to the game. On whether presently there are sufficient numbers to sustain such a league in Barbados, Wiltshire said that answer could only be answered with the introduction of such a platform.
“Don’t care how poor the league is when it starts, start it and keep it going. You would be surprised to know that the mere fact that young girls are now seeing these women it would interest many more, who did not before think there was a platform or avenue for them before to come to the fore. It is a whole system, it can’t just happen at board level at the BCA,” he stressed.
Wiltshire added: “How do we expect [WI women] to be consistent if we have not given them the level of support structurally and in terms of amount of money and even moral support that we give to the men. We are all excited and enthusiastic about men’s cricket, what about women? There had a cricket game in Australia during the Ashes and the whole of Melbourne that holds 100,000 people was packed to capacity. You think you could have a cricket match down here in the Caribbean with West Indies women playing England or Australia and get Kensington full? We need to get serious. We have not done enough to help or introduce structures to move them forward. I just don’t understand why we have to wait until somebody else does it to know it can be done.”
