CWI Raises Concerns Over WI Women’s Form

(CMC) – Cricket West Indies (CWI) President Dr Kishore Shallow has expressed concern with the recent performances of the West Indies Women’s team, describing them as below par.

The Windies Women are coming off a poor showing in their recently concluded white-ball home series against Sri Lanka Women, where they lost the One-Day International (ODI) series 2-1 and the Twenty20 International (T20I) series 2-0.

Speaking during a recent interview on iSports i95.5 FM, Shallow revealed he had already raised the issue with CWI’s Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe.

He said major improvements were needed, especially with the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup just three months away.

“I will definitely admit that there are concerns,” Shallow said. “I looked at the recent series against Sri Lanka; in fact, I was there for one of the T20 matches, and I followed the other matches online, and certainly it was a disappointing performance except for the performance of the Captain Hayley Matthews, who scored a hundred in the last ODI game, and Jannillea Glasgow, a young player [who] scored back-to-back half-centuries.

“Apart from that we had some reasonable bowling performances, but on a whole, a team that not too long ago was ranked below us in Sri Lanka, beating us at home fairly convincingly, that wasn’t an encouraging sign at all.

“I will definitely admit that there are concerns,” Shallow said. “I looked at the recent series against Sri Lanka; in fact, I was there for one of the T20 matches, and I followed the other matches online, and certainly it was a disappointing performance except for the performance of the Captain Hayley Matthews, who scored a hundred in the last ODI game, and Jannillea Glasgow, a young player [who] scored back-to-back half-centuries.

“Apart from that we had some reasonable bowling performances, but on a whole, a team that not too long ago was ranked below us in Sri Lanka, beating us at home fairly convincingly, that wasn’t an encouraging sign at all.

“We need to identify the issues; why we are not showing signs of improvement quicker, especially with a World Cup later this year. We need to be playing much better than that. I’m very concerned, I’ve flagged it with the director of cricket and I’m hopeful that we will see at least better performances on the field.”

Shallow said he was shocked that Head Coach Shane Deitz had not come under more scrutiny in recent times.

He said, with just a few more months left on Deitz’s contract, a decision would soon have to be made regarding his future with the team.

“I’m surprised that Shane Deitz is not getting more attention,” Shallow said. “But I’m sure Miles has been speaking with him, and I’d be surprised if those discussions haven’t been ongoing.”

The Windies Women now face the unenviable task of playing world number one Australia in another white-ball home series, with the opening T20I set to bowl off on Thursday at Arnos Vale in St Vincent.

While acknowledging it was a challenging opponent, Shallow said he expected to see a better fight from the regional team.

“We have a tough assignment coming up against Australia pretty soon and I’m hopeful that we can play some good cricket.

“It’s going to be tough because Australia is the number one team in the world, but at least we have some world-class players who I know that if they put forward their best performances, then we could definitely compete and hopefully win,” Shallow said.