West Indies Women’s Captain Hayley Matthews admitted her team was outplayed by Australia in their recently concluded white-ball home series. The visitors delivered a dominant showing, sweeping both the T20I and ODI series.
Australia sealed the ODI series with a convincing nine-wicket win, bowling out the hosts for 136 before comfortably reaching 137 for one in 19.4 overs.
Matthews acknowledged the strength of the top-ranked Australians despite the heavy defeat, but noted that her team still had some positives to take from the series.
“With them coming down here, we always knew it was going to be a tough assignment. I think when we look at the series and how our spinners bowled throughout, I think that’s one area where we can be proud of, but obviously, there is a clear skill gap between the two teams.
“But at the same time, I noticed a lot that we can work on, and it was a great opportunity for a lot of our younger girls to have the experience to go out there and play against some of the best players,” Matthews said.
“We obviously have quite a few within the setup now, and this was the perfect opportunity for them to come out and understand what the highest level of cricket is like, and definitely a few bright sparks in Ashmini (Munisar) and the way she went in that second match, and even the way Realeanna (Grimmond) set up today. It’s pretty good to have them amongst us and playing against this competition, and hopefully they can understand and learn a lot from these opportunities.”
Matthews added that she is not concerned about her batting form despite not having scored a half-century in any of the T20Is.
“I got off to a start in all three games, and I just wasn’t able to carry on in my innings, and that can happen sometimes.
“I surely would have loved to get a big one, but I’m going to have to look at that conversion and see how I can get deeper in my innings in the future. But at the same time, I thought I was hitting the ball really well, getting in some really good positions and then just getting out, so I don’t think it’s too much to worry about, just a case where I really didn’t get too deep in any of my innings,” Matthews said.
