Matthews welcomes return of experience ahead of tri-nation series
Published:Thursday | January 19, 2023 | 12:54 AMOrane Buchanan/Staff Reporter
FOLLOWING SUB-PAR home performances where West Indies Women where swept twice against New Zealand, losing 3-0 in an ODI series and then 5-0 in a T20 series, redemption is on the mind of skipper Hayley Matthews as a tri-nation T20 series against India and host nation South Africa bowls off on Saturday.
Ahead of the series Matthews was pleased to announce the return of some of her more experienced players like all-rounder Stafanie Taylor and batter Britney Cooper for the highly anticipated series against fourth-ranked India and fifth-ranked South Africa.
“Firstly, it’s good to have a lot of our players back who would have obviously had a couple of injuries over the last couple of months, which at the same time would have given some youngsters a really good opportunity. But, at the same time, to have the senior core back really gives us a strong team coming into a series like this,” said Matthews.
The West Indies Women, who struggled with bat in hand in the recently concluded series against the Kiwis, will be looking to make amends and Matthews believes the additions have come at the perfect time.
“Obviously, we would have seen our batting performances and probably hoped we would have gotten some more runs scored in the series. So hopefully, as a team and as batters, we can go out there and perform better. With some more senior players coming back into the side that’s one area we could improve in,” said Matthews.
Captain Matthews also challenged herself to not only have a good series, but also to improve her overall game.
“Within the team, I’m one of the more senior batters that we have, so I’ll be definitely going out there to try and take some responsibility and bat a lot of overs and hopefully play some electric cricket.”
With the 2023 T20 World Cup set to bowl off on February 1 in South Africa, some of those poor performances could help the West Indies because they are now firm underdogs.
“I think for us, heading into a T20 World Cup right now, we probably would be going in as underdogs with not much to lose. I think we got a fairly good set of young players within the set-up, and if we can go and play fearless cricket I think it gives us a good opportunity at performing the best we can,” said Matthews.