Sri Lanka Women completed their tour of the West Indies in a successful way as they beat West Indies Women in both the ODI and T20 series, leaving much for the home side to think about before a busy period of international cricket.
The tour got off to a good start for Sri Lanka Women as they took an early lead in the three match ODI series, winning the first game by 10 runs. They then followed that up with a close win in the second game, beating West Indies Women by 14 runs. West Indies managed to salvage some pride in the third ODI, producing a strong performance to win by six wickets, but the visitors had already done enough to seal the series 2-1. The momentum continued for Sri Lanka in the T20I leg of the tour.
The first match did not come to a conclusive result, but in the remaining matches, Sri Lanka was in total command. The Sri Lanka Women won the second T20I match by four wickets and in the third match West Indies suffered a nine-wicket defeat, losing the series 2-0. The West Indies Women had many areas of concern, especially in batting during this series.
During the ODI matches, only Jannillea Glasgow and Stafanie Taylor could score half-centuries for the West Indies Women. The batting was even more dismal in the T20 matches, where in the final match, Chinelle Henry’s unbeaten 32 was the highest score achieved by West Indies Women during the T20I series. After the poor performance, West Indies Women’s head coach Shane Deitz said. The performances have been way off the mark and he is dissatisfied. He said this after the final match of the series.
“Obviously I’m very disappointed. We didn’t play very good cricket, so that’s it. There aren’t a lot of things to be pleased about,” Deitz said. He also pointed to the long gap between international matches as one of the reasons behind the team’s sluggish display.
According to Deitz, the side appeared rusty after going nearly eight months without competitive cricket. “It’s been eight months since we last played a game. We looked very rusty as a unit, our combinations weren’t working and we just looked like we hadn’t played for a while, which was obviously the case,” he explained.
However, the coach managed to point out some positive aspects that came out of the series. The young players in the team, like Jannillea Glasgow and Jahzara Claxton, were impressive with their performances and showed promise to play bigger roles in the team in the future. For instance, Glasgow was impressive after scoring two impressive innings in the ODI series.
“I think the takeaways would be a couple of fringe players stepping up. Glasgow played two great innings in the ODIs and is starting to establish herself as an international cricketer. Jahzara Claxton is also stepping up as an international cricketer, she showed a lot of versatility and has a big future,” Deitz said.
The West Indies Women will now have to quickly regroup and prepare to face Australia in a tough home series, which will feature three T20 Internationals (T20Is) and three ODIs from March 19 to April 2 in St Kitts and St Vincent. The Women’s World Cup is just around the corner, and this series will be important for the West Indies Women to gain confidence and form.
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