COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, CMC – After clinching the One-Day International series convincingly, West Indies Women have now set their sights on sweeping the three-match Twenty20 series which bowls off at the R Premadasa Stadium here today.
The touring side suffered just one defeat en route to taking the four-match ODI series, 3-1, and captain Merissa Aguilleira said they had resolved to play unbeaten for the remainder of the tour.
“The place is very humid down here but after all, we know what we came to do even though we came to win all of our matches,” she said.
“We fell short in one so … we’ve said to ourselves that we’re not going to lose any more matches. We’re going into the T20s with full fire and hopefully we can bring it home for the people of the Caribbean.”
All three matches have been scheduled for the R Premadasa Stadium, with the second game carded for Monday and the final one on Tuesday.
Despite playing inconsistently, West Indies Women still managed to outplay the Sri Lankans in the ODIs and will now take that momentum into the T20 series.
They opened the series with a five-wicket victory, slumped to a six-wicket loss in the second game before rebounding to win the last two encounters.
In the last game, they managed just 156 but defended it superbly to come away with an important 31-run verdict.
“I felt really good to know that we have actually crossed that hurdle because after going out there and scoring 156 we knew that we had to step up to the plate,” Aguilleira explained.
“It was really a team effort, we went out there as a team and organised ourselves in a way where we just had to stay focussed and maintain our focus, and I think that’s exactly what we did. I think it was a really tremendous job and well done to the team.”
The last three games of the ODI series counted as ICC Championship games, and Aguilleira pointed out that winning two of these matches had been vital.
“Winning was important because we really wanted to get the six points but we fell short in the first [championship] game but we’re really thankful to God that we got the last four points,” she said. “Hopefully going [forward] in the championship we can get more points.”
The ICC Women’s Championship is a multi-year, bilateral competition between the top eight sides, which earns points towards qualification for the 2017 Women’s World Cup.
