According to Hayley Matthews, who reflected on an
outstanding performance against Australia with her 132 off 64 balls guiding
West Indies to a record T20I chase, holding the captaincy has helped her take
her game to another level.
She had been unbeaten on 99 in the first game and had
scored 231 off 138 balls over the course of two days while also taking four
wickets. She and Stafanie Taylor, the skipper before her, contributed 174 runs
in 14 overs on Monday to produce an extraordinary outcome.
“Today was quite incredible,” she said.
“I don’t think any days of cricket have beaten that. The leadership of the
team has definitely helped me to take responsibility of my game, that along
with learning and understanding my game a lot more from playing franchise and
T20 cricket on the road.
“Two of those put together over the last 12
months have really helped, not only with me scoring runs, but scoring them
consistently as well.”
“I speak about trying to lead by example, and I
think it’s something growing up I watched Stephanie do, while I was playing
with her in my younger days. Since I’ve taken over the role, I’ve really tried
to emulate that and take responsibility and set a really good example for the
young girls.”
Matthews didn’t start taking the prospect of winning
seriously until just over the halfway mark of the race. Taylor had already
reached her half-century mark and was beginning to recover from a slow start.
After a few overs, Matthews hit Darcie Brown for two sixes before Phoebe
Litchfield dropped her at cover with the score at 87.
“Steph and I really started to have a look at
chasing it when I think we needed 105 from 54 balls,” she said. “At
that moment, with the momentum we had, we really spoke about trying to go as
hard as we could from both ends with the wickets he had in hand. Kudos to her
as well, she had an amazing knock at the other end. It took so much pressure
off me and kept the boundaries flowing.”