Head coach of the West Indies Women’s team, Courtney Walsh, has declared the successful T20I and One Day International series wins over Pakistan women a confidence booster.
West Indies Women scored a clean sweep of the three-match WT20I series and leads the five-match WODI 3-1.
Walsh appeared on the Mason and Guest radio programme earlier this week where he spoke highly about the contributions of the coaching staff towards the turnaround in fortunes for the Caribbean women’s side.
The former speedster noted, “I think the first camp we had the girls came in and we did a lot of work with them, the coaches, everybody was in tune to what was happening and we have sort of put together a lot of teamwork and try getting them to improve.”
Walsh said winning breeds confidence.
“It’s always nice to win because it breeds confidence. The biggest challenge is we hadn’t played cricket for a while so I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but they responded well,” the head coach added.
Walsh said that there was a bit of uncertainty heading into the 50-over format with limited match time for the longer game but the willingness of the ladies ensured those doubts were put to rest.
“They are not the finished product as yet, far from it but they are willing to learn…and prepared to work hard and I think hard work is paying off a little bit. Obviously we have a lot more work to do but I think the enthusiasm that we can see and the way they are going about it for me is heartening…,” he related.
The West Indian legend was pleased with the performances of several players, indicating that it was a true reflection of the hard work everyone has been putting in over the last few months.
He was particularly impressed with the improvements made by Hayley Matthews and captain, Stafanie Taylor who has now jumped to the number one ranked batter and all-rounder in WODIs.
“A lot of our batters have chipped in, Chedean Nation has been pretty consistent, Britney Cooper, Knight sisters have been doing pretty well so it’s good the consistency is there and the coaches are really putting in hard work,” he declared.
In spite of acknowledging his happiness with seeing the consistency and improvement from the ladies, Walsh pointed out that there are still further enhancements that need to be made as they prepare for the World Cup qualifiers.
He said,”We are still talking about the all-round performance of the team. The batting could get a little bit better, we were improving in the field but that is an area we have to put special attention to see how best we can improve on that game by game day-by-day and the bowling can be a little more consistent as well…”
Pakistan women’s tour of the Caribbean will conclude today with the final 50-over match.
