West Indies Women’s Head Coach Courtney Walsh’s public
proclamations of having been pleased with his team’s
performances during the recently concluded ICC Women’s
World Cup cannot be said to have been unexpected. Within recent times
West Indies Head Coaches have demonstrated a consistent tendency to
issue public statements that are somewhat removed from reality.
The reality of the West Indies Women’s 2022 World Cup campaign is
that after surprising, very narrow victories over hosts New Zealand
and eventual finalists England, they subsequently lost by comprehensive
margins to both Australia and India and barely managed to come out on
the winning side against Pakistan with yet another very squeaky victory.
Three narrowly squeaky wins, an equal number of massive losses and one
rain affected no result is not the type of record that any self-respecting
Head Coach should be proud of.
Indeed, had it not been for India’s nail biting last ball, three wickets loss to
South Africa in the very last match of the tournament’s Preliminary Round,
the West Indies would not even have qualified for the semi-finals. Having
gotten to that stage of the tournament, their inadequacies were, however
glaringly exposed for the world to see by virtue of their humiliating 157 run
loss to the eventual champions Australia.
One such inadequacy is that the West Indies Women’s team’s success
has long since been over dependent upon the performances of its three
world class players, Captain Stafanie Taylor, Deandra Dottin and Hayley
Matthews. Most of the team’s secured victories have been as a result of
outstanding performances by those three, either individually or in some
form of combination with each other.
Unfortunately for the West Indies even though she emerged as both the
team’s highest run scorer and leading wicket-taker, Matthews’ form during
the tournament, especially with the bat, was somewhat inconsistent.
Dottin for her part, had a highest score of 62 among the 199 runs she
scored from her 7 tournament appearances at the crease. That equates to
her remaining six crease appearances having produced an average of 19.5
runs per innings.
Expected to have led by example, Skipper Stafanie Taylor’s tournament
was even more disappointing. Taylor had just two decent scores, an even
half-century as well as a 48, in her seven innings batted which altogether
produced a miserly aggregate of 151 and an overall average of 21.57. With
the ball she was even more of a non-factor, capturing just four wickets
from a paltry 22.5 overs bowled at a relatively expensive economy rate of
5.43. By comparison, Matthews’ team leading 10 wickets were captured
from 61.5 overs bowled at a respectable 4.33 economy rate.
Taylor’s substandard performances with both bat and ball, coupled with
a much too often lethargic approach to her captaincy responsibilities
whenever the West Indies were in the field, have now raised legitimate
questions as to the merits for the continuation of her tenure as the team’s
skipper. Seemingly disinterested was the description best suited to Taylor’s
overall demeanour at far too many times during the World Cup.
Now aged 30 she is still relatively young. She has now, however, been
an international cricketer for fourteen very long years, having made her
international debut in 2008 at the tender age of 16. She has also captained
the West Indies Women’s team in 62 matches, the tenth highest number
by any woman in international cricket. More worryingly, her last nine
innings at bat have produced five scores of under 20! She has also only
captured a total of 7 wickets in the last 10 matches she has played.
All the signs, therefore, now seem to be indicative of an ever increasing
degree of tiredness on Taylor’s part, an immediate remedy for which
would be to relieve her of the burdens of captaincy. If so the most readily
identifiable candidate to step in as her replacement would be Hayley
Matthews. Within recent times Matthews has demonstrated all of the
qualities that would be required of a leader. We would suggest that she
should now be given the responsibility.
Matthews Should Replace Stafanie Taylor As West Indies Women’s Captain!
