KINGSTOWN – West Indies women’s captain Hayley Matthews took most of the responsibility for her team’s recent batting struggles following their 43-run loss to Australia Women in the opening T20I in St Vincent on Thursday.
The home team’s players did well to restrict the Australians to 164 for six in their 20 overs, but could only reach 121 for six after being comfortably placed at 76 for one at one point.
Opener Matthews made just 11, with only Qiana Joseph, who made 45 off 39 balls, and Stafanie Taylor, who contributed 28 off 25 balls, putting up any real resistance.
Matthews has struggled to get going with the bat since returning to action earlier this year after undergoing surgery on his injured shoulder in 2025.
In a post-match interview, the captain admitted that her dip in form was a direct reflection of the team’s batting performance, which was also below average in the recently concluded white-ball series against Sri Lanka, where they lost both the ODI and T20I series at home.
“I think we can certainly take the positives from how we bowled today, but in the last few games we’ve probably been disappointing with the bat.
“Obviously I’m a little stagnant myself and that probably correlates with how we’re going with the bat, but certainly we as a hitting group have to find ways to score and get better as a team,” Matthews said.
“I want us to come back strong. It will be very important for us to get back up.”
Reflecting on the team’s performance in the opening T20I, Matthews said the bowlers did a commendable job.
He said that while the batting conditions were a bit challenging, he maintained that the home team should have performed much better.
“We probably thought around 160 would be a good score for us to chase, so I was really happy with the way it went, especially the pacers putting those wickets in front.
“As Australia’s innings went on, it looked like it just slowed down a little bit and then probably played a little bit better after it was bowled out in the middle of the innings and then slowed down again towards the end, but it didn’t seem like the conditions were that bad, we just didn’t execute like we wanted to today,” Matthews said.
CMC