Hayley Matthews’ fifty takes WI to 8-wicket T20I win over Ireland, Caribbeans take 2-0 lead

Gros Islet [St. Lucia], July 8 (ANI): The West Indies Women took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match T20 International series as they defeated Ireland Women by 8 wickets at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground on Thursday night.

Winning the toss and batting first, Ireland posted 113/7 in their 20 overs. Amy Hunter led the scoring with 33 from 35 deliveries, skipper Laura Delany was next best with 20. Cherry-Ann Fraser led the West Indies bowlers, finishing with figures of 4-0-16-1 and Hayley Matthews 4-0-24-1, with special mention to Ashmini Munisar who had the most economical spell of 4-0-14-0.
Hayley Matthews once again led the run-chase, bringing up her eighth T20I half-century before being dismissed on exactly 50 off 39 deliveries. Shabika Gajnabi played a supporting role to Matthews and eventually Chinelle Henry who smashed a full toss for six and three boundaries to finish on 22 off 12 while Gajnabi was not out on 17, as the West Indies Women reached the 114-run target in 16.4 overs.

In the post match presentation, skipper Matthews said, “I think we’re pretty happy with the result. Coming into this tour we wanted to be able to take home both series, so just very happy that we were able to go out there and win convincingly today and secure the T20I series. We had more intent going out today and we noticed early on that the wicket was a bit better on today and we went out with the intent to chase down the runs quicker,” she said.

WI captain credited her fields from the win as they took some outstanding catches.

“What really helped us today was the fielding, the catches and run outs we were able to take, kudos to the overall team for the bowling performance they put on and the fielders for backing them up,” Matthews further said.

Brief scores: Ireland 113/7 (Amy Hunter 33, Laura Delany 20, Cherry-Ann Fraser 1-16) vs West Indies 114/2 (Hayley Matthews 50, Chinelle Henry 22*, Laura Delany 1-12).