ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier
Venue: Old Hararians Sports Club
Toss: West Indies won toss and elected to bowl
Scores: Ireland 159 all out; West Indies 163-4
Result: West Indies won by 6 wickets
Player-of-the-Match: Deandra Dottin
Scoreboard: https://www.windiescricket.com/matches/209829/#scorecard
Deandra Dottin showed her class with a match-winning batting performance which saw West Indies Women defeat Ireland Women to make a solid start on their road to the ICC Women’s World Cup. The powerful opening batter cracked 73 off 87 balls with two sixes and eight fours as West Indies easily chased down the target of 160 set by the Irish, on Tuesday.
It was a characteristic impactful performance by Dottin, who said she has set her sights on always providing a smooth start at the top of the order. She added 61 off 13.3 overs with Rashada Williams (8), who unfortunately fell to a run out. Dottin sped to her half century off 48 balls, and added 33 with Chadean Nation (17).
Dottin was dismissed at 113-3 in the 25th over and from there captain Stafanie Taylor took over the run scoring. The skipper, who recently became the first West Indian woman to reach the milestone of 5,000 ODI runs, made 41 not out from 54 balls with three boundaries, to seal the winning start.
“I’m enjoying my role at the top of the order. Today, we bowled very well and restricted Ireland, so it was a matter of going out and completing the overall team performance with some solid batting at the start. We spoke about starting well and we are quite happy with this win,” Dottin said.
“We are looking at qualifying and making it to New Zealand for the World Cup, so we have to be very positive in everything we do. There was some rain around, so I wanted to make sure I got us off to a positive start before the rain came, and that is what happened.”
Dottin added: “For the other matches upcoming we want to keep the same momentum and look to win those matches as well. We are playing really well as a team and we have great belief.”
Earlier in the day the West Indies experienced bowlers limited the Ireland batters after they got a great start of 79 in 20 overs by Leah Paul (25) and Gaby Lewis (36). They openers were dismissed by Anisa Mohammed who was the best bowler with 3-40 in her 251st international appearance for the West Indies. The off-spinner now has 296 wickets in all formats – the most by a West Indian woman in history.
West Indies will have their second qualification match on Saturday at the same venue. First ball is 9:30am (3:30am Eastern Caribbean/2:30am Jamaica).
-CWI
