ICC Women’s World Cup: West Indies record first win over NZ

Caribbean side hopeful of booking place in final.

The West Indies secured their first win over New Zealand by 48 runs to keep their hopes of making it into the final of the ICC Women’s World Cup.

The Caribbean side posted a decent score of 207 against the Kiwis in their Super Six meeting in Mumbai, and now they need to beat Australia who have already qualified to join them in Sunday’s final.

Stafanie Taylor top-scored for the West Indies with 49 from 53 balls, falling just short of her half-century when caught behind off New Zealand skipper Suzie Bates.

Deandra Dottin added a lively 27 from 21 balls to give the innings some impetus, while Shanel Daley made a more serene 37 to get them within touching distance of a competitive total.

It was Anisa Mohammed who put the West Indies in with a real shout of victory  as she took them beyond the 200-run mark with her late 31 coming at almost a run a ball. Her contribution earned her a player-of-the-match award.



“We fought from beginning to end,” said Anisa, according to ESPNcricinfo. “It was a good total, we needed to get some early wickets. There’s no big secret behind my action. I think Stafanie is a brilliant player. We leave (our celebrations) to the next game.”

Meanwhile, West Indies captain Merissa Aguilleira praised Taylor’s performance.

“Stafanie started the innings brilliantly,” said Aguilleria. “I give the girls all the credit. We believed that once we got to 200 our bowlers would do the job. I must commend Anisa. We have good depth in our tour team.”

Losing captain Suzie Bates acknowledged that her team did not play to their full potential.

“There’s going to be a lot of hurt, we didn’t play well enough,” said Bates. “We thought there would be enough in the wicket early but gave away too many boundaries at one stage. We needed at least one big partnership.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 12^th, 2013.