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Nobody can blame Hayley Matthews or Chinelle Henry for what happened at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Saturday. Or Afy Fletcher or Aaliyah Alleyne. In their must-win final qualifier of the ICC Women’s World Cup 2025, West Indies Women came up trumps to secure a rapid 6-wicket victory.
But there are those who will carp, point fingers at Stafanie Taylor. Deservedly? You be the judge.
With their team chasing 167 for a season-saving win against Thailand Women, captain Matthews smashed 70 off 29 balls and Henry 48 off just 17 balls. The onslaught got the West Indies Women to their target in just under 11 overs.
But it was not enough. Fortunately, a win in 10.1 overs proved not to be the only way to get it done. It was, truth be told, almost the only way.
And it’s that ‘almost’ that brings Taylor sharply into focus.
If WI could get from 157 to at least 172 by the end of the 11th over, WI would squeak past the 0.639 red line. At least 15 are needed off the next four balls.
(via CWI Media.)
Arguably, this hard-luck, bittersweet story all started with the 11-run first-round loss to Scotland on 9 April. That was a game the WI-W were expected to win comfortably. They did not.
Subsequently, the unsurprising 65-run defeat by Pakistan aside, they did not put a foot wrong. They beat Ireland by 6 runs and Bangladesh by 3 wickets.
But let us begin at the beginning of the end, Saturday’s game. Defeat would mean elimination. Pakistan had already claimed the top spot in the five-team group.
Bangladesh, solidly in second place with six points and a better net run-rate than the Maroon Misses, needed simply to avoid disaster in their showdown with the home team.
Winning the toss, Matthews opted to field. Whatever they get, she and her team must have been thinking, we’ll get there rapidly.
One imagines Matthews warning her bowlers not to rout the opposition, not to seek to dismiss them so quickly as to remove any realistic possibility of a spirited chase and a run-rate boost.
Halfway through, the Thais would have been pleased with their 166 off 46.1 overs, built essentially on the back of Natthakan Chantham’s 66 off 98 balls.
(Copyright Dean Lewins/ EPA-EFE/ Shutterstock.)
For the WI-W, spinner Fletcher (4/20) and medium pacer Alleyne (3/41) led the attack, claiming six of their seven scalps bowled. And they paced it well, breaking through at regular intervals once there was something on the board to chase.
Only the opening (30), second-wicket (34) and seventh-wicket (33) partnerships were allowed to flourish. Numbers one to four and extras all got to double figures; numbers five to 11 managing only the classic telephone number: 1-1-2-6-6-4-4
A quick calculation showed that, to overhaul Bangladesh’s 0.639, Matthews’ Maroons would need to get to their 167 target in 61 balls.
(via ESPN.)
Do the math. That’s two and three-quarter runs per ball!
Par for any course for opener Qiana Joseph—that, at any rate, is how it seems to the regular observer. In her element, striking at 282.35, she raises 26 with one six off only 12 balls. She departs, caught Laomi, bowled Putthawong.
There are still three balls left in the sixth over. The scoreboard reads 81 for 1.
At the other end is the more successfully aggressive Matthews. With Henry, she adds 24 off the next nine balls. Then, she too goes caught off Sutthiruang. Her 29 balls have yielded 70 at a strike-rate of 241.37. There are just two sixes but there are 11 fours!
Henry soldiers on, losing the struggling Shemaine Campbell at 146 for 3. Just four balls later, Phannita Maya induces the error, stops her in her tracks, caught by Sutthiruang.
Her rapid 48 includes five towering sixes; it has not quite got her team to the target. WI-W are still 10 runs short.
More to the point, it has taken 62 balls to get that far.
All, however, is NOT in fact lost.
(via ICC.)
To the immense delight of former captain Taylor and Alleyne, who has joined her at the crease, the statisticians have spotted the aforementioned ‘almost’. It’s a narrow window of opportunity, not discerned at the start of the innings.
Off balls three and four respectively, Alleyne gets a four and a single.
Over to you, Stafanie!
Ten runs will do. A 20th four, a ninth six and we are home. WI wrest the final qualifying place. WI wipe the smiles off the faces of the now exulting Bangladeshis.
But have a care! WI need precision here. There are two targets, remember, not one!
Now then, ball five. Twock! Taylor clouts it down the field towards long-on. Over the boundary it sails. Six!
For a second, West Indian supporters leap triumphantly into the air.
Shades of Eden Gardens 2016. Remember the name!
(Copyright AP.)
Then realization dawns. Shoulders slump.
The game is over. West Indies have won by six wickets. Their final overall run-rate is 0.626, just 0.013 below Bangladesh’s.
So it’s the team from the sub-continent, not the one from the Caribbean, that will be competing in the International Cricket Council Women’s T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from October 3 to 20.
A six for a nine leaves you feeling like a fool.
(Copyright ICC.)
But a six for a four, Stafanie?
How does that feel?
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
