“She’s a very special person!”
That was the Facebook listed description of one adoring fan, immediately after Hayley Matthews had posted her career-best bowling figures of 4/15-10 overs to help the West Indies to yet another nail-biting win in their 2022 International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Women’s World Cup campaign. Matthews’ outstanding performance deservingly earned her the Player-of the-Match honors, while providing further concrete evidence of her continuing rise as West Indies Women’s cricket’s brightest shining star.
Matthews had earlier also demonstrated her outstanding batting skills in the West Indies opening match of the tournament against hosts New Zealand. She scored a superb century, 119 made off of 128 balls, including 16 fours and 1 six, to help the West Indies post 259/9 off their 50 overs, a total which in the end proved to be just out of reach for New Zealand.
Now still only just 24 years of age, Hayley Kristen Matthews started her involvement with cricket at the tender age of 11. By then she had already captained her school’s boys team. Just a year later, at 12 years of age, she made her debut for the Barbados Women’s team.
It took just four relatively short years of representing Barbados before Matthews subsequently made her international debut, as a 16-year-old, in September 2014, representing the West Indies in a Twenty20 against New Zealand. Her ODI debut, against Australia, swiftly followed, and Matthews impressed right from the outset, making 55 in the first game and a total of 241 runs in the four-match series. She was also the highest wicket-taker from either side in both the ODIs and T20Is during West Indies’ 2015 tour of Sri Lanka.
Hayley Mathews had her first experience of playing at an ICC World Cup during the 2016 Women’s World T20.
It was at that very tournament that she established her credentials as an all-rounder of international repute. She made her most telling performance in the final against three-time champions Australia. Having had her 18th birthday in the middle of the tournament, Matthews took on the Australian bowlers with the audacity of youth, hitting 66 off 45 balls to help her team chase down 149 and win their first world title.
In the eight years that have passed since she became an international cricketer, Hayley Matthews has played 66 and 61 ODIs and T20Is respectively for the West Indies. Her ODI outings have produced 1729 runs, including three centuries and six half-centuries, from 65 innings batted at an average of 27.44. Her bowling returns have been 78 wickets captured for 1858 runs conceded off of 2791 balls bowled, resulting in an average of 23.82 and an economy rate of 3.99.
In the 61 T20Is she has played for the West Indies to date, Matthews has scored 1055 runs with one century and four half-centuries, and at an average of 17.88. Her overall strike rate for her 61 innings batted has been 104.87.
As an off-spin bowler, Matthews has so far captured 58 wickets from 1049 balls bowled at a cost of 1040 conceded runs for an average of 17.98. Her economy rate, during the 55 innings within which she has bowled, has been 5.94.
Such statistics aren’t quite reflective of the international stage dominance that was expected of Matthews after her World Cup 2016 Final performance. Back then she had seemed to be clearly destined for even bigger things, both for herself and for her team.
Inconsistency has, however, been Matthews’ problem. Having debuted in ODIs in 2014, she made three fifties in her first three matches, but she has made 50 or more only seven times in the 58 innings that followed. More recently, after an unbeaten 100 against Pakistan at home last year, she scored only 12 runs in five innings as opener, following which she was relegated to batting at number five in the order. Her T20Is scores of late haven’t been that great either, with a highest score of only 32 from her last 20 innings batted.
That was then but now seems to be of a different time altogether with Matthews’2022 World Cup scores to date of 119,45, 43, 0 and 18 reflecting a far more welcoming degree of consistency. With the ball she has also been as consistent, picking up wickets fairly regularly, as evidenced by her returns of 2/41; 2/40; 1/65; 1/31 and most recently 4/15 in her five 2022 World Cup matches played to date.
Matthew’s recent performances have resulted in significant improvements in her standings within the ICC Women’s Player rankings. She is now ranked second behind Australia’s Ellyse Perry as the ICC’s top all-rounder, ninth as a bowler and 17th as a batter.
Asked of her up-and-down batting performances across limited-overs formats since the 2016 T20 World Cup final, Matthews said, “I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing over the last couple of years. Maybe I guess some people might say I haven’t hit the expectations I’ve wanted to. But at the same time, I feel like over the last year or two, I’ve really been able to improve. Yeah, just show what it takes, and yeah, hopefully, I can continue doing that,” she said.
“Obviously, I’ve been shuffled around the order a little bit over the past maybe eight or nine months. But at the same time, I think my job is to do as best as I possibly can for the team wherever they need me. When you talk about playing on the biggest stage, the World Cups, to be able to produce really good all-round performances obviously means a lot to me,” she added.
Such words and actual performances from an older, obviously much wiser, Matthews are suggestive of her ever-increasing maturity. Certainly, far more so than that which had subsequently been demonstrated by the prodigiously talented 18-year-old who had burst onto the international scene with her outlandish batting during the final of the 2016 T20 World Cup.
Hopefully, such words are also indicative of Matthews’ realization and complete appreciation of the role she has to play, as a now senior member of the West Indies’ Women’s team in setting most worthy examples for her fellow teammates to follow. The manner in which she has spoken during her post-match interviews at the current World Cup certainly suggests as much.
The eloquence that has Matthews has demonstrated during such interviews is also indicative of her impressive knowledge and understanding of the requirements of white-ball cricket. Very early in her international career, she had been appointed as the West Indies Women’s team vice-captain only to be subsequently stripped of the position, as a consequence of an act of indiscipline on her part.
The Hayley Matthews of today now seems to be a totally different person from the less mature, apparently indisciplined younger adult she was before. She now seems to have finally found her way back to being firmly on the path to fulfilling all the glorious achievements that have long since been expected of her. Including that of eventually being appointed as Staphanie Taylor’s replacement as captain of the West Indies Women’s team.
While she works towards fulfilling such worthy objectives, we will all hope that her performances in the interim will leave even more fans gushing adoringly with their descriptions of her as a “very special person!”
About The Writer:
Guyana-born, Toronto-based, Tony McWatt is the Publisher of both the WI Wickets and Wickets monthly online cricket magazines that are respectively targeted towards Caribbean and Canadian readers. He is also the only son of the former Guyana and West Indies wicket-keeper batsman the late Clifford “Baby Boy” McWatt.
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