West Indies women’s team all-rounder, Hayley Matthews, is banking on their five-match T20I series against England Women this month in England to gain momentum and show that women’s cricket is ready to be reintroduced.
Since March, cricket was plunged into a standstill with the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic sweeping the globe.
This will be the first female tournament since the International Cricket Council Women’s T20 World Cup and Matthews is cognizant of its significance.
During a Zoom conference yesterday, the 22-year-old posited, “It’s also going to be a historic tour. It’s going to be the first women’s tour since the pandemic so we are hoping with the start of this tour we could get a lot of the other boards looking on and seeing cricket is feasible and get cricket going around the world.”
Matthews reported that having arrived over two weeks ago the tour is going well.
“I think it’s been pretty comfortable, “she said.
“I think from the first day we came here we knew what the protocols were. We were told and given everything we needed so it was just a matter of coming down here and getting into the training and stuff,” she added.
The Barbadian off-spinner said the thought of resuming playing cricket was very exciting.
“I think first of all it is very exciting to be down here. We’ve obviously been on break for a while now so to get going again is obviously exciting,” she declared. Matthews, picking out the positives of being in the bio-secure facility, said that it can help keep the focus on cricket.
“I think it is kind of helpful, kind of limits distractions,” she said.
“I kind of get to focus on the cricket a bit more so I think the nets and everything has been going well so far, everyone seems to have been working hard back home and you know just in nick ready for the first game.”
The first match begins September 21.
