World Cup: Can West Indies bounce back from India defeat to test Meg Lanning’s unbeaten Aussies?

For all the thrillers and close contests that we have witnessed in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup so far, the pre-tournament expectations that Australia will be strong have remained well on track.

And now match 14 of this year’s tournament will feature Australia against West Indies in their seventh match, with two teams coming into the match with widely contrasting results.

Australia will be looking to secure their fourth straight win and consolidate their pole position at this competition. On the other hand, West Indies will be hoping to move on from their recent loss against India, a massive one that dented their Net Run Rate too.

They will be keen to get back to their winning ways, if possible, and perhaps knowing that there is little to lose here would help. They have won two of the three matches they have played so far and pulled off two impressive upsets on paper.

Australia have the historical edge, winning five of those six contests, compared to West Indies’ one. They have played only six ODIs between them, excluding the World Cups. Australia are unbeaten, winning on all six occasions. However, they have not faced each other since their bilateral series in 2019 at Antigua, and it was won by Australia 3-0.

It will be interesting to see how these two teams battle out in the first powerplay. West Indies have been the best batting team from overs 1-10 in this tournament so far. They have lost only two wickets and scored 193 runs in the 1st PP across all their three batting innings thus far (RR – 6.4). On the other hand, Australia so far have the best bowling performance in the first powerplay. They have taken six wickets and conceded only 119 runs in their three bowling innings (ER – 3.9) inside the 1st powerplay.

Australia’s Ellyse Perry enters this game in form after scoring a crucial half-century (68 from 86 balls) against New Zealand. In her 10 innings against West Indies, Perry has scored 507 runs at a phenomenal average of 169 (dismissed only 3 times), including four 50s and a 100. She has also taken 20 wickets at an economy of 3.6, averaging 13.6

Hayley Matthews will be a key member of the West Indies squad. She is the highest run-scorer of this tournament with 207 runs (Inns - 3; Avg – 69.0). Historically, in five matches that she has played against Australia, she has scored 287 runs at an average of 57.39, including three 50s

Australian pacer Darcie Brown:

 If you do play tomorrow - Darcie Brown, I guess you’ll be potentially taking the new bowl against a couple of the most damaging batters in the world like Deandra Dottin. Have you thought about the prospect of bowling to someone as hard as she does?

I mean, it’d be an awesome challenge. We played against them in the practice match. And she whacked me around a little bit but yeah, always looking forward to a good challenge playing against  some of the best batters in the world.

How much will that practice match help decide plan for tomorrow’s game?

Darcie Brown: Yeah, yeah, it was great to be able to play against them in the practice match. We learned a fair bit. So yeah, we will hopefully create some plans around that and how they went against us then. I mean, it’s a different wicket, different place. It’s a lot windier here than it was back in Christ Church. I think it was so. Yeah, I guess we’ll make some plans around that

West Indies head coach Courtney Walsh

Given that you had two wins and a loss, what aspects of the game do you think would you like to see the West Indies women, or they have to improve on against the number one ranked Team Australia to get a win tomorrow?

We have to be good in all aspects of it. We have to ensure that we compete right through the game and we watched the game against New Zealand yesterday and they’re just too good teams, but we have to be at our A game in our department – batting, bowing and also fielding and also the mindset. So we have to come prepared tomorrow to play good hard cricket and execute it well in all departments. If you can do that, then you know I’ll be very happy.

Since you took over as West Indies head coach, what kind of evolution have you seen in Deandra Dottin the all-rounder and also as a senior member of the squad?

Walsh: She’s fully committed to do whatever she can in the team, she believes in herself and backs herself, which is very, very good. And she’s not afraid of her teammates as well. So she has come back in a lot hungrier after the injury and what I’ve seen - I mean she’s a dream [inaudible] performance, because she can set the game up for you from the get go. And if she performed the way that she can, see help us win more games than we lose.

The follow up question to that is what qualities in her have you been most impressed with? And have any of those reminded you of any other cricketer you’ve watch play or played against?

Walsh: She had to believe in herself. She believed that she could win the game even when it’s almost impossible. She backs herself. She’s a very confident individual within herself and even if she has a bad game, she doesn’t show it, but she backs herself all the time and – similar to Viv Richards or something is in the dressing room, but she’s always going to give you 100% And that’s all you can ask for and she reminded me of him as a player.

With inputs from ICC Business Corporation FZ LLC 2020