The Sharjah outfield received a hard smack from Zaida James’ bat as she walked off, with West Indies 11 runs away from the T20 World Cup final. James, 11 days away from turning 20, contributed 14 runs off eight balls batting at No.9 and believed she could “bring it home.” Ashmini Munisar, who is just a year older than her, came in next and gave James a reassuring pat on the helmet as they swapped places. Munisar would do her job and get off strike but had to watch from the other end as the match was lost.
That West Indies’ last hopes lay with two of the youngest players in their squad speaks volumes about what they lacked in this tournament, and it also says something about what they may have to look forward to in future. There is talent, but it must be properly nurtured and more of it must be found in a region where resources remain scant. All this makes West Indies’ final four finish in the UAE more remarkable.
“Honestly speaking, we probably just don’t have it like a lot of the rest of the teams,” Hayley Matthews, the captain had said after West Indies knocked England out of the tournament on Tuesday. “Back home in the Caribbean sometimes we don’t have facilities and a lot of our girls come from very humble beginnings. To be given this opportunity to come out, represent your nation, and make a living out of it, for every single person it changes their lives.”
While West Indies have central contracts for the women’s team, the regional system is only on the cusp of professionalising. Creating a year-round high-performance system remains a challenge. Ahead of international assignments, players get taken to centralised camps which Matthews says are “really difficult on the girls because they are not able to stay in their homes with their friends and their families.” She would like to see them “be able to just get proper cricket training whilst they’re home,” because “we’ve got enough good coaches around the Caribbean that something can be done or put in place for everyone to be able to stay in their own territories and be put in a proper system where they can continue to improve there.”
Legspinner Afy Fletcher, who is currently the joint second-leading wicket-taker at the T20 World Cup, is one example. She is the only player in the West Indies team from Grenada, an island whose cricket team competes alongside four others as Windward Islands. When she is not on regional or national duty, she practices with her partner, a former club cricketer, because it is her only option.
“Fletch just goes to the nets with someone she knows, maybe her partner, and he throws balls at her a lot of the time so it’s amazing for her to be able to come out here and perform the way she does,” Matthews said. “For all of our players to come out and perform the way they do – that’s why I feel as though you can never really be too hard on them because I think a lot of the time with what we’re given and what they’re given we’re still exceeding expectations every single time.”
While Matthews has experience in the WBBL, the Hundred and the WPL, where she plays alongside other internationals, most players in her West Indies team have to “learn on the international scene and that can be so difficult,” she said. She would love a system as advanced and professional as Australia’s, for example, which is designed “to create players who are ready to step onto the big stage.
“I’m watching the T20 Spring Challenge right now in Australia and I’m seeing 13 and 15-year old girls doing some insane things. I would absolutely love it if we had a system like that in place where our girls could come out from the regional system and be at a certain level.”
The challenges for West Indies lies in creating this from the geographic spread of the islands to their economies but they will receive a big boost from this T20 World Cup. As losing semi-finalists, West Indies will take home $675,000, some of which may be invested back into the women’s game. That thought won’t dry Matthews’ tears on a night when she thought they had a final in the bag but as someone who, in the words of her coach Shane Deitz, is “really driving” the legacy-building aspect of the women’s game, it may provide some comfort in the days and weeks to come.
Then, perhaps, Matthews and West Indies will be able to look back and appreciate the significance of what they achieved by getting to the semi-finals at a World Cup where better-resourced teams like Australia, England and India, did not. New Zealand, who advanced to their first final in 14 years, already know that especially after they identified a lack of depth as their primary concern despite a developed domestic system.
In March, their captain Sophie Devine told ESPNcricinfo’s Powerplay podcast that “there’s not much depth coming through,” in a country with a small population. After getting to the semi-final by beating Pakistan in the UAE, she repeated and expanded on that. “We’re not India, we don’t have a billion people to sort of pick from,” she said.
But they do have a handful, and Devine recognised that as a step in the right direction. “Look at who’s on the bench. Molly Penfold’s been outstanding the last 12 months, she’s come on in leaps and bounds and you’ve still got players like Jess Kerr, Hannah Rowe and Leigh Kasperek it’s those small wee things where it’s going to take time to build depth, especially in a country as small as New Zealand. It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s going to be a continual work on for us.”
New Zealand do not suffer from West Indies’ poor finances and were the first country to introduce equal pay on match fees but have to deal with several other competing sports that attract some of their best athletes. Netball is their most popular women’s sport, followed by rugby union but cricket is gaining ground.
That is reasonably similar to the situation that their opponents in the final, South Africa face. Netball is also the most popular female sport in participation numbers in South Africa but cricket is growing. South Africa are the third country out of the four that advanced out of the group stage whose players have battled personal and structural hardships to beat the best in the world.
Almost every one of them has a story but Ayabonga Khaka, who was born in the small town of Middledrift in the Eastern Cape, two years before democracy is a standout example. Khaka was born into “impoverished circumstances,” Eddie Khoza, Cricket South Africa’s pathways manager, told ESPNcricinfo. She went on to become one of the first women at a boys’ academy when she joined the University of Fort Hare’s facility under the tutorship of former international Mfuneko Ngam. She has a degree in Human Movement Science, she invests in farming in her community and Khoza calls her “a living example and an icon who has “achieved things on and off the field and could inspire the next generation of cricketers.”
In Khaka, South Africa have a player whose quiet consistency and confidence has proved how much is possible. She has played in two ODI World Cups – both times reaching the semi-final, and four T20 World Cups and has lived and breathed the gains and misses of each of them. Her message to “people from the parts that I come from,” is that “anything you want, you can do it.”
That sums up what this World Cup has said for the progression of women’s cricket. Two of the Big Three – India and England – did not reach the semi-final and the third, Australia’s grip on the trophy released. Three of the four semi-finalists come from places where their players put their passion ahead of the struggle, even when it seems that the odds are stacked against them. They know that desire alone doesn’t win a World Cup. It’s a combination of planning, luck and the muscle memory of dealing with pressure and if nothing else, they now know a bit about that. As James said, “I take this as a learning experience,” which may mean next time will be better.
