Hayley Matthews Seeks Four Wins in Ireland Women Vs West Indies Women
Hayley Matthews wants West Indies Women to win all four of their tri-series matches, starting with ireland women vs west indies women at Castle Avenue on Thursday. The opener is the first step in a short build toward the Women’s ICC T20 World Cup, which begins in England and Wales on June 12.
Castle Avenue Opens the Route
West Indies Women enter the series ranked sixth in the T20I rankings, ahead of Pakistan at eighth and Ireland at ninth. That ranking gap gives Matthews a clear target: use the tri-series to sharpen plans against sides the West Indies are expected to handle, while still treating the matches as a proper test.
“The tri-series is going to be very important, obviously with the World Cup coming up in just about a week or two now,” Matthews said ahead of the match against Ireland. She added that the aim is to “make sure that we’re getting the combinations right as a group and going into the World Cup knowing exactly what plans we want to have in place,” with the series serving as the last competitive checkpoint before the tournament.
Matthews and the 10-Day Camp
The West Indies captain said the group completed a 10-day preparatory camp in Wales before arriving in Ireland, and she credited it with getting the squad ready for conditions similar to those expected at the World Cup. That work came before the team even took the field in Castle Avenue, so Thursday’s match is as much a read on the prep as it is a start to the series.
“The prep was really good for the group. Being up in Wales, having similar conditions to what the World Cup is going to be like was really crucial to get accustomed and acclimatised to what it’s like over there, and to get the girls in really good nick before coming down here to Ireland and getting ourselves in the best possible position to be able to come down here and perform, and then over to the World Cup to perform, too,” Matthews said. That leaves the tri-series with a simple scoreboard target and a deeper selection test at the same time.
Pakistan, Ireland and June 12
The tri-series also includes Pakistan, giving West Indies Women two opponents ranked below them and a compact window to lock in roles before June 12. Matthews said winning all the matches would leave the side “in really good stead going into the World Cup,” and she called those wins a confidence boost heading into the tournament.
“Success for us probably is very clear coming into a series like this. Playing against two teams that we’re ranked higher than in the T20 rankings, we probably want to go out there and win all the matches, and I think that’s going to be the real goal for us this series. It puts us in a position that if we do win those matches, we certainly feel that we’re in really good stead going into the World Cup,” she said. For West Indies Women, Thursday is not a warm-up in the casual sense; it is the first chance to turn the Wales camp into results before the World Cup starts.
