… England captain pleased with fight shown throughout

By BRIJ PARASNATH

WEST Indies Women team lost the ODI series 2-3 when they conceded victory by five wickets to their English rivals on Wednesday at Sabina Park, Jamaica.WI captain Stafanie Taylor chalked up her third fifty of the series but had to share the Most Valuable Player-of-the-Series award with England’s left-arm spinner Alexandra Hartley who finished with four wickets in the match and 13 wickets overall, a new bilateral series record for England.
Taylor lamented her team’s failure to win the ODI series against England and said: “It’s disappointing that we were not able to pull it off, but this is what happens when you don’t show up.”
The 25-year-old all-rounder revealed that they were optimistic before the game started but everything did not go as planned. She stressed that: “We had backed ourselves to get a total closer to 200, but that did not happen, and it gave them a low total to chase.”
West Indies were bundled out for 155 all out in 47.1 overs while England romped to an emphatic five-wicket win with 158 for 5 off 38.5 overs, and 67 deliveries to spare.
Taylor is hopeful that her teammates will learn from the experience as they plan for future series. She stated that: “Overall, I am proud of the effort of the girls in the series, and it is for us to learn from this experience going forward.”
However, England captain Heather Knight was full of praise for the manner her teammates responded to the challenges and their determination to beat the West Indies team.
She said: “I am really pleased with the fight shown by our players throughout the series.”
“It was tough series, but we always knew we had what it takes to come out on top. It was all about application, and in the final match, I thought we did that brilliantly.”
England coach Mark Robinson was also elated with his players’ performances and stressed that: “It’s absolutely outstanding. We’ve had it tough. It’s been ever so humid, red hot and the wickets have been massively challenging.”
She surpassed Rosalie Birch’s 11 wickets against South Africa in 2004.
Robinson described Harley as a tough cookie while also saying, “We are a young team and we are learning as we go along. We feel we’re going in the right direction and we feel we have shown everybody what we’re made of.”
With the latest victory, England move ahead of West Indies to 23 points and are currently second to Australia who head the eight-team standings on 30 points.
West Indies dropped to third position on 22 points and must win two more matches to clinch one of the four automatic qualifying berths for next year’s ICC World Cup tournament which will be staged in England.
England need one more victory while Australia have already secured the first automatic qualifying spot through the ICC Championship series.