By Huzaifa Yousafzai from Lords
West Indies captain Hayley Matthews was the star of the show for the Welsh Fire as the visiting side chased down 150 against London Spirit.
The Bajan all-rounder walked in at number three following the dismissal of the captain Tammy Beaumont and the Fire’s leading run scorer in Sophia Dunkley.
Matthews then struck an incredible 78 not out from just 46 balls to take her side over the line with 5 balls to spare and 6 wickets in hand.
Having failed to take any wickets in the first innings, Matthews was determined to give her self a chance to succeed in the run chase.
“I just tried to give myself a chance early on and get myself set at the crease. We figured that once we had someone set in at the crease and laid that platform, we had a good chance at getting the target.”
Speaking in a post-match press conference, Matthews explained how the pitch and ground dimensions at Lords helped the Welsh Fire to hunt down the large first innings total.
“What we did try to do is have a lot of conversations and communicate really well. With the shorter side it meant we tried to hit that as often as possible and choose our best options.”
“Credit to their batters, I think they batted really well, but I always felt like it was a score that we could chase. Once we did go out to the field, we noticed that (the pitch) started off a bit sticky but it continue to get better, and we saw that as a positive going into our innings.”
Her captain and England opening batter Tammy Beaumont was delighted by Matthews’ performance and was extremely pleased as her side won for the first time at Lord’s.
“She was absolutely outstanding as you know how dangerous Hayley Matthews is and that was just exceptional to watch. For Hayley to stand up it was outstanding, and I don’t actually think we’ve ever won at Lords before so it’s massive.”
“That’s why you sign someone like Hayley Matthews, she’s just shown exactly what she can do here today against a really good bowling attack who’ve got lots of international experience and they’ve shown that they have really smart plans in their death bowling as well. Hayley just counteracted (their plans) and just pushed the right buttons at the right time.”
Opposition skipper and England captain Heather Knight also admitted that despite her team’s best efforts they found it extremely difficult to stop Matthews scoring freely.
“It was an unbelievable innings by Hayley Matthews, she was really hard to stop even with the big boundary on one side she still managed to hit a lot of boundaries that way.”
