Hayley Matthews

Hayley Matthews conquered the world by the time she turned 18. She is now establishing herself as a spokesperson for the global game, and is one of the greatest there’s ever been. As the West Indies gear up for another T20 World Cup, eight years on from that night in Kolkata, she spoke to Wisden.com.

Hayley Matthews already has a decade of experience as an international cricketer. With over 5,000 international runs to her name, one more wicket will make her only the fifth player ever to have more than 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in women’s T20Is. It’s a feat she’s already achieved in ODIs.

But, above the statistics, Matthews holds a unique place in West Indies cricket. She’s part of a generation who will likely be the last to debut while still taking their school exams, but her career will outlast the rest of the cohort who drove the West Indies into the professional era. She acts as a bridge from past glories to the promise of more in the future, an embodiment of the 2016 T20 World Cup zenith as well as the great white hope for a side in its early ascendancy.

Named Wisden’s Leading T20I Cricketer in the World earlier this year, Matthews is personally at one of many peaks. As her career enters its second decade, it’s hard to fathom how far ahead of the pack she could be by the time it ends, especially given what she’s already accomplished.

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It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the triple 2016 West Indies World Cup triumphs to both cricket in the Caribbean and Matthews’ career. Facing an Australia side chasing their fourth consecutive title, West Indies only had 10 professionally contracted players at that time - of which Matthews was one - and were ranked fifth in the ICC rankings for the format. It was a challenge that seemed so unlikely that none gave them a prayer.

If it wasn’t for Matthews, those predictions likely would have been correct.

“I was so young,” says Matthews. “I think I was 17 at the time, just turning 18 - so it’s all a blur. I just remember going out and wanting to enjoy myself. That’s when I was still playing cricket and not thinking about planning an innings, just going out and having fun with batting.”

That youthful inexperience and optimism proved the perfect recipe for a situation which, at the halfway stage, looked bleak. Half-centuries from Meg Lanning and Elyse Villani meant Australia posted 148-5, which was then the highest total ever in a women’s T20 World Cup final.

“At the time that was a massive score in women’s cricket,” says Matthews. “I was really nervous, I think I even dropped my bat on the floor while I was at the crease trying to take guard.”

Matthews was right to be nervous. Faced with some of the best bowlers in the world, she managed just two singles off her first nine balls, with the required run rate climbing above eight by the fourth over of the innings. “I went to speak to Staff [Staffanie Taylor] and said, ‘Look, I’m just going to have a swing here and hope it goes well’. Thankfully for me and the team, it started to come out of the middle of the bat. It was one of those nights we were able to create history.”

From the most unlikely of positions, Matthews was the driving force behind the chase, scoring 64 off her next 34 balls in a huge stand with Taylor. It was a clinical innings beyond her years, which secured a seismic victory, which remains arguably the greatest upset in the women’s game to this day.

The translation of Matthews’ talent onto the biggest of stages was just the first remarkable thing to happen that night in Kolkata. After the West Indies men’s side ran onto the pitch to celebrate with the women, the roles were reversed later in the evening, with Carlos Brathwaite hitting Ben Stokes for four sixes in a row to ensure people remembered the name. Earlier in the year, the West Indies U19 side had also won their World Cup, a side featuring the likes of Shimron Hetmyer and Alzarri Joseph downing India in the final. Between them, the West Indies’ women, men and juniors had toppled cricket’s Big Three.

“For the same team to win all three is unbelievable,” says Matthews. “When you look at what cricket does for the people of the Caribbean, we’re all different countries and different islands, so we all have our own rivalries against each other for whatever reasons. But the one thing that does bring us all together is cricket. So the fact that we were able to all win it in the same year I know meant a lot to the people of the Caribbean.

“Even talking to people back home, they still get tears in their eyes just talking about that day. Knowing that you’re part of something that special is incredible.”

The unlikelihood of anything like what was achieved in Kolkata to happen again isn’t solely down to scheduling logistics, but compounded by West Indies’ women’s sliding position in the global game. They are currently ranked sixth in both the ICC ODI and T20I rankings and finished sixth in the last two T20 World Cups.

“I went into it [2016] like, ‘Jesus, was it this easy all along?’ says Matthews. “I remember talking to the girls after and teasing them saying, ‘You’ve been to all of these World Cups and been in these finals and semi-finals, I just came in and we won the World Cup easy, just like that’. And then reality hit me as the World Cups went on.”

“It was so heartbreaking in 2018 as defending champions playing at home in the Caribbean and getting knocked out in the semi-finals. I remember being on the field in tears, heartbroken.”

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A significant contributor to the West Indies’ decline has been the struggle to bring new players in to replace the outgoing likes of Stacy-Ann King and Anisa Mohammad. Along with intermittent injuries and absences from Taylor, Shemaine Campbell and Deandra Dottin, their reliance on Matthews in all facets of the game has been extreme.

Since the beginning of 2020, Matthews has played more matches for the West Indies than anyone else. She’s scored 1,339 T20I runs in that time - 829 more than the next-highest scorer - and has more than double the number of half-centuries than the rest of her teammates combined. The same is true for her tally of centuries in the ODI format - five in the last four years, with Taylor and Dottin the only others with ODI tons in that time.

Her dominance is also profound with the ball. In the same period, Matthews has 52 T20I wickets, with her nearest challenger for the West Indies having 32. No one with more than 20 wickets has a lower average than she does, and no one with more than ten has a lower economy rate. It’s again a similar story in ODIs.

“Especially when Staff was injured, it did feel like it was all on me,” says Matthews.

From the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023, West Indies endured an 18-match consecutive run without a win. But there have been cautiously optimistic signs for the West Indies over the last 12 months.

In October of last year, Matthews went on a scarcely comprehensible run of form in Australia. Across three T20Is, she made 310 runs at a strike rate of 174.15, including a century which helped secure the West Indies their fist win over Australia since that 2016 World Cup final. Matthews was awarded Player of the Match in that game, having also taken three wickets. Staggeringly, it was her seventh consecutive match award in T20Is - she would add an eighth in the following game. It’s the kind of record you imagine might never be broken.

“It was honestly a dream. I was on a high and loving every moment on the field, and loving the moments with the girls after the games.

“When we do play them [Australia], we go out thinking we’ve got absolutely nothing to lose. No one is expecting us to come up against them and win any games, so one thing we try to instil is going out to be fearless. For us, it’s a night we’ll always remember and one we’ll cherish because it is in the history books. We did something pretty special that day.”

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The true measure of those successes can’t be measured in individual moments, but whether they are part of a replicable pattern. Since Australia, the West Indies have recorded T20I series wins over Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It’s an encouraging run of results going into another T20 World Cup. There’s also a steady stream of new players feeding into the side, with Matthews referencing Zaida James, Quiana Joseph and budding off-spinner Ashmini Munisar as three to keep an eye on.

A major part of the improvement to the pathway bringing the next generation of talent into the West Indies side is the WCPL. Having just started its third season, the competition is now established as a short, sharp component of the women’s franchise circuit.

The likes of Jess Jonassen, Chamari Athapaththu and Meg Lanning will play in the WCPL this year. Attracting those marquee players opens up options and experiences to players in the West Indies who, unlike Matthews, are not exposed to franchise leagues around the world.

Matthews has been the sole West Indies’ representative on the franchise circuit over the last year, appearing as the only player from the Caribbean in the WBBL, WPL and Women’s Hundred, where she played for Welsh Fire. As franchise leagues expand, and West Indies players gain more exposure through the WCPL, the hope is that more players will filter through into those leagues.

“The crowds that come in have been really exciting [in the WCPL],” says Matthews. “Last year was our first big year of the WCPL, and usually when we play in the Caribbean we don’t get many people in, but we were able to get quite a few. At the final in Trinidad, there were thousands of people watching the match.”

The T20 World Cup in just over a month’s time will be the first time that growth will be tested against the rest of the world. While expectations should be managed as to what the West Indies can achieve in that competition, the results they’ve demonstrated over the last 12 months and solidified domestic structure means Matthews is quietly confident of what her team can accomplish.

“It takes one or two big performances to win a match,” she says. “Teams like ourselves, the underdogs, always have an opportunity.

“We won in 2016, no one was expecting us to beat New Zealand in the semi-final. Then, no one was expecting us to beat Australia in the final. If we go into this World Cup knowing that every single day someone’s going to have to step up to the plate really big, and that it’s not always going to be my day, or Staff’s day or Campbell’s day, but if someone can step up to that plate and have everyone around supporting, we can definitely do some shocking things.”

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