West Indies Women’s captain Hayley Matthews was under no illusions about the enormity of the task facing her side in the deciding third Twenty20 International against hosts and World No. 1 Australia Women on Thursday.
Matthews struck an unbelievable 132 in the second T20I on Monday in Sydney, and the Caribbean side levelled the three-match series 1-1, giving them the chance of inflicting a rare home series defeat on the world champions for the first time since England Women beat them in 2017-18.
“It will be huge because Australia have not been beaten at home in a long time, and for a team like us that is trying to learn and grow so much, with so many young players within the squad, it will definitely mean a lot for us,” the 25-year-old all-rounder said.
“It will definitely mean a lot for the people of the Caribbean and those back home supporting us, but it will definitely instill a lot of confidence in this team, and I think it is exactly what we need.
“Batting-wise, they have batting from one to 10, which is why they are able to play the brand of cricket they do, going hard right down their order. Bowling-wise, their experience speaks a lot. They have so many senior bowlers within their line-up. They are the No. 1 team in the world for a reason, but from the first day we reached (Australia), we said that we were up for the challenge and looking to play our best brand of cricket, and hopefully the results will fall in our favour,” Matthews added.
The win by West Indies Women was the third defeat for the Aussies in their last four T20Is after they had played unbeaten for 12 matches in a row before hosts England Women shocked them twice in the Women’s Ashes earlier this year.
“For us, we didn’t want to play with any fear at all, even before we won a game. I think we all know the kind of quality they have within their team; we try not to be afraid of that and, like I keep saying all the time, be up for the challenge.
“We know that once we are out there giving our all, even if we do go down, once we are competing and moving in the right direction and learning from our mistakes, I think within our dressing room that is one of the biggest things for us, but when we get opportunities to win games, we want to try and grab them with both hands,” Matthews said.
Matthews said increased investment from the leading cricket nations in their women’s programmes was starting to bear fruit, and this has led to a few of the surprising results lately.
“That’s what’s going to close the gap,” she said. “Australia just got way ahead of the game because their board made a pretty early investment, and a pretty big investment into their women’s game and we saw them grow from strength to strength.
“I think the more boards around the world are able to pump more money, more funds, more investment into their women’s game, we’re going to see that gap closing further. It’s going to take some time for other teams to be able to catch up, but I think it’s good we’re seeing these results thrown up all over the world.” (CMC)
