“Not a time to panic” – Matthews after Windies Women’s series loss

After falling short in the recent One Day International (ODI) series (2–1) and T20 International series (2-0) against Sri Lanka at home in the Caribbean, West Indies Women’s captain Hayley Matthews is of the opinion that her troops should not be panicking about form ahead of the 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup
This year’s World Cup is set for England from June 12 to July 5, involving 12 teams.
Matthews took this position on Wednesday in the aftermath of her team’s nine-wicket loss and impending 2–0 T20I series loss to visitors Sri Lanka at the National Cricket Stadium, St George’s, Grenada.
“Not really,” Matthews responded to enquiries about whether or not she was worried about the West Indies’ batting in the powerplay. “I think I’m not scoring runs and it’s as simple as that. I feel as though once that issue is fixed, the powerplay is going to look a lot different for us.”
The skipper went on to assert her confidence in her team, stating, “Contrary to what you said, I think we actually have quite some time before the world cup; few more tours coming up before then that we could get things right, get the combinations going. So, I don’t think it’s time to panic. I think the conditions in England are gonna be quite different as well. So, lots of things that we have to work on going forward but certainly not a time to panic a yet, as a group or as a team.”

Zeroing in on their batting unit during the last contest against Sri Lanka, Matthews said, “We felt like we weren’t far off what would’ve been par for a wicket like this. I think kudos goes to how they properly batted in the second innings, negating a bit of the turn going on but yeah, I feel like if were able to get a bit more through the middle, we certainly would’ve been exactly where we want to be.”
Looking ahead at their next assignment against Australia, Matthews picked out some positives from the Sri Lanka series that they can take forward.
The West Indies Women’s captain reasoned, “In the ODI Cricket especially, the way some of the youngsters have been able to step up like Janiellea Glasgow, the way we’ve been able to get 200+ on the board without many of our top six scoring runs in those first two ODIs are certainly some positives and I think the bowlers have been doing a real good job in this T20 series, the way they’ve come out and bowl.”
“So, still so many positives we can take from it and we’re just going to have to correct the areas that we aren’t doing so well,” she went on to add.
Australia Women’s tour of the West Indies is set to get underway on Thursday, March 19, at Arnos Vale in St Vincent and the Grenadines with the first of a three-match T20I series. The West Indies will host Australia’s women for three T20Is and three ODIs.