On paper, the West Indies women’s record against Australia looks like a story of sustained struggle. However, numbers alone don’t truly capture what this rivalry means because whenever West Indies have beaten Australia, it has been historic.
Australia leads the combined head-to-head 31–3 across 34 ODIs and T20Is since 1993. While it is easy to read all this as one-sided domination, it does not reflect the complete story.
West Indies’ sole One Day International win against the Aussies came on February 13, 2013, in Mumbai during the 2013 ICC Women’s World Cup. Needing a victory over the reigning world champions to advance from the Super Six stage of the World Cup, West Indies defeated their opponents by 8 runs after batting first and posting a modest 164, with current Maroon Warriors all-rounder Deandra Dottin earning Player-of-the-Match.
The win also effectively knocked England and New Zealand out of title contention in the process, with West Indies claiming all three of their Super Six matches to reach the final.
Unfortunately, the team suffered a 114-run defeat in that subsequent final against the Aussies, but the initial boldness to beat a dominant side like Australia when the stakes were high, became a landmark moment for Caribbean women’s cricket.
While that Super Six victory brought with it intense emotion and regional adulation, there are not many moments in this rivalry that can compare to April 3, 2016, at Eden Gardens, Kolkata – again in India.
Australia had won six of the previous seven Women’s T20 World Cups, and have since triumphed in the 2018, 2020 and 2023 editions.
Openers Hayley Matthews and captain Stafanie Taylor came to the crease with a target of 149 to chase. At the time, it was a daunting enough total that most teams would have been unsuccessful at reaching, but the West Indies did so with three balls to spare.
Matthews, who turned 18-years-old mid-tournament, smashed 66 from 45 balls while Taylor contributed 59. Their opening partnership of 120 set a new West Indies T20I record which still stands today and was the foundation of an 8-wicket victory and a maiden World Championship for the West Indies Women.
To date, it is the only time Australia have ever lost a Women’s T20 World Cup final and true to the historical narrative, the only team to beat them was West Indies.
Seven-and-a-half years later, on October 2, 2023, the North Sydney Oval was the venue as Matthews accomplished something that had never been done in women’s T20 cricket.
Chasing Australia’s imposing total of 212, characterized by Elyse Perry’s 46-ball 70 and the joint-fastest T20 fifty in the format’s history by Phoebe Litchfield, the deck was stacked against the visitors from the outset.
Despite already taking 3 for 36 with the ball from her tiresome spell, Matthews then walked out and cracked 132 off 64 balls inclusive of 20 fours and five sixes. As a result, she crafted another blistering partnership with her opening partner Taylor, 174 runs, for the second wicket, as West Indies won with a ball to spare.
REUTERS/Satish Kumar
As Matthews wrote her name on history’s page with the highest individual T20I score by a West Indian Woman in the highest successful T20I chase in history, she set a new standard for women’s T20 batting.
Three wins in 34 matches sounds like a record of failure but you may be encouraged with a deeper look at those three victories.
The first, reshaped a World Cup tournament, the second, secured a maiden World Cup title, and the third, the greatest successful WT20I chase ever recorded.
History hasn’t been kind to West Indies’ record of beating Australia, but when they do, they do so in moments that get written into the permanent record of the sport and sometimes change the trajectory of possibilities in the sport.
As the 2026 home series heads to St Vincent and St Kitts, the tradition West Indies women carry with them will not be of the losses, but of those invaluable and historic moments created during this enduring, endearing cricket rivalry. (windiescricket)
