Matthews credits young players for stepping up at T20 World Cup

LONDON, England:

West Indies Women’s captain Hayley Matthews has admitted that the team’s star players did not perform to their full potential after they were dumped out of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup by Australia Women at the semifinal stage on Tuesday.

Speaking in a post-match press conference after their eight-wicket defeat at Kennington Oval, Matthews said herself, Deandra Dottin and Stafanie Taylor – the team’s three best batters – did not have a good tournament.

Shemaine Campbelle’s 176 runs at an average of 35.20 were the most by a West Indian batter. In six innings Matthews scored 146 runs at an average of 24.16, Dottin scored 98 runs at an average of 19.60, while Taylor scored just 90 runs in four innings.

“For the entire tournament, I just feel like we haven’t had too many individual standout performances. I think we had Shemaine [Campbelle] in that first game alongside Aaliyah [Alleyne] and we had Chinelle [Henry] score a 50 in that match against England.

“But I think that when we look overall as a group, we haven’t had enough players really put their hands up and take control of a game and in T20 cricket you always need someone stepping up and putting down good performances and I think that’s what we lacked not only today, but the entire tournament,” Matthews said.

Despite being eliminated at the semifinal stage for the second straight Women’s T20 World Cup, Matthews said she was heartened by the performances of some of the younger players.

“We always feel disappointed, but I keep reiterating all the time that the fact that we’ve made it to this stage of the competition with a lack of performances from our big players speaks volumes to the supporting cast that we have in the team, it speaks volumes to the likes of Aaliyah Alleyne, maybe a Jahzara Claxton and a Jannillea Glasgow.

“Things used to look a lot different once upon a time and I certainly feel like the last World Cup or the one before that if I had the form that I did with the bat and Deandra Dottin did, we would not be in a semifinal right now. So I think we can take a lot of pride from that, knowing that me and Deandra and Stafanie [Taylor], we are a bit letdown, but we are proud that as a unit we were still able to get over the line in a lot of the games,” Matthews said.