West Indies Women’s Cricket is in crisis!

May 30, 2025 Sports

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By Colin E. Croft – Former Guyana, Lancashire CCC & West Indies International Cricketer

Kaieteur Sports- Wednesday 21 May 2025 was personally bad sports-wise.  It included West Indies Women failing miserably, embarrassingly so, to overcome fresh-look England Women, losing the first of three W-T-20-Is to England Women.  Indeed, no result was close as WI-W, former ICC 2016 W-T-20-I champions, were eventually obliterated 3-0!

Manchester United FC also lost; 1-0; to Tottenham Hotspur FC in Europa League 2025 Final.  That result cost MUFC US$120m but allowed THFC access to that noble sum.

Those losses accentuated earlier stresses, when, contrary to expectations, WI Men lost to Ireland Men, in ODI No. 1, by 124 runs, at Dublin.  Not even the Irish, as optimistic and as enthusiastic as they are, expected that result.

WI Men corrected that seriously dark mirage, winning ODI No. 3 by a massive 197 runs, after WI Men had made their 2^nd highest ODI score:  387-7.  Rain had spoiled ODI No. 2.

ICC ODI  9^th rated WI Men could only, disappointingly, draw the 3-ODI series; 1-1; with 12^th ranked Ireland Men.  WI Men must improve considerably to beat England Men; ICC ranked No. 8; in the ongoing 3-ODI series.

So, what is wrong with WI Women’s Cricket team anyway?  They just seem to turn up, play whenever scheduled, look discombobulated, huff and puff in imaginative nothingness, then lose.  This has been going on these past months.

Does anyone really care?  Why have changes not been made to team personnel and especially to team coaching structure?  Where is CWI’s Director of Cricket in all this?

WI WOMEN’S CAPTAIN HAYLEY MATTHEWS – WI SUPER WOMAN

WI-W captain Hayley Matthews has been singularly magnificent, fighting wars, like Ancient Britain’s Queen Boudica or France’s Joan of Arc, against other nations’ women cricket teams.

Unfortunately, while personally remarkably successful, Hayley Matthews must have already realized that no one person is a team, not even in “individual” sports like pugilism.

Hayley Matthews is just past her 27^th birthday but seems to have been around forever; Pisces, born 19 March; smart enough to arrive under that wonderful Zodiac sign.  From my sporting experiences, I can attest that her sporting life could still hit snags and challenges.

The WI Women’s captain debuted in W-T-20-I’s, v New Zealand Women in September 2014, and in W-ODIs, v Australia in November 2014.  She already has ten + years at international level.  With her unbelievable production, and fantastic fitness, she can continue to play for another ten years for WI Women and even play for her franchise teams around the world.

Her statistics are incredible; hard to believe; much less to appreciate.  She is presently career-best ICC rated No. 1 Women’s T-20-I All-Rounder, career-best rated No. 2 batter in ICC W-T-20-I’s, No. 4 rated ICC batter in W-ODI’s and No. 9 rated bowler in W-ODI’s by ICC.

Simply, Hayley Matthews is WI Women’s Super Woman.  For her and the Caribbean, though, she is only a very fruitful oasis in a vast desert of WI-W pathetic non-productivity.

Against England Women in the just completed 3-game W-T-20-I series, she made 177 runs; 3 innings, avg 88.50; took three wickets; had 100 no. in a total of 146 – such dominance and singularity almost unheard of; won “Player of the Match” in W-T-20-I Nos. 1 and 3; capped it all by winning “Player of the Series.”   Yet WI-W lost all three W-T-20-Is to England Women!

With such phenomenal personal successes, Hayley Matthews desperately needs much better all-around supports, players to augment her efforts, if WI Women are to quickly return to being successful and back to winning ICC Women’s tournaments.

Last April; ICC WCWC 2025 Qualifier in Pakistan; WI Women failed to progress, when given a second chance, after not featuring in the top six – Australia, India, New Zealand, England, South Africa, Sri Lanka – to get to ICC WCWC 2025 India, in September.  That tournament will be worth US$8 million to all participating teams.  What a great miss for WI-W and CWI!

In that ICC 2025 WCWC Qualifier, won by Pakistan Women, WI-W were 3^rd, behind Bangladesh by 0.003 NRR.  The real problems were that WI-W lost to Scotland and Pakistan.  WI-W captain Hayley Matthews topped the wicket-taking tally; 13 wickets; 5 games; 15.83 avg., while WI-W’s medium-pacer Aaliyah Alleyne had 12 wickets; 13.66 avg.

IMMEDIATE CHANGES NEEDED IN WI WOMEN’S SQUADS          

Immediately after that abject failure in Pakistan, mostly against Associate teams, WI Women’s selectors should have rung many meaningful changes for the England tour, indeed, as had recently been done by England Women themselves.  This perseverance with non-productive WI-W players are reminiscent of happenings to WI Men’s teams in 1990s / 2000s.

Not only did England Women change their Head Coach after their “Ashes” drubbing suffered earlier, v Australia, losing every match in that tour; 7-0 (3 W-ODIs, 3 W-T-20-Is, one-off W-Test); England Women’s team now has a new captain too, effecting a restart and new era.

At least four, arguably more, WI-W players now in England, are way past their “used by date.” Their contributions have become very negligible, with no continuity of even average fitness either.  This increasing ultra-dependency on Hayley Matthews is downright dumb!

Everything starts at the beginning.  Go back to the tried and tested methods.  For future successes for WI Women’s cricket, there must immediately be meticulously organized, coached and collated girls’ games at high school level, preferably even at primary school level, in all Caribbean countries.  There are no short-cuts to producing skillful players.

That had been done for young WI men.  Michael Holding, Hiliary “Larry” Gomes, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Desmond Haynes, Brian Lara and Shiv Chanderpaul are examples who had graduated from such screenings, some even earmarked early for senior WI Men’s teams.

The USA school/college programmes must be copied.  Nowadays, scouts investigate talented young women and young men even in prep schools in USA, for sports like tennis, gymnastics, athletics, softball, baseball, lacrosse, American football and aquatics.

For WI Women’s cricket’s future, 100 + young women from each country must be made properly ready to produce at proper regional age-group tournaments, with a view for future senior WI Women candidature.  Drastic changes must occur immediately, if not sooner, or West Indies Women will falter much further.  Cheers.  Enjoy!

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