“The thing is, I can actually start slow and just pick up”.

It’s been nearly fifteen years since the first recorded century in Women’s T20Is. That afternoon, at Warner Park, Deandra Dottin showed that the game could be played a certain way. Before her, no player – male or female – had hit a T20I century in under 40 balls.

To this day, her record for the fastest century in women’s cricket remains intact.

Slotted in at No.6, she was in by the tenth over with the West Indies on 53-4. Fuelled by just "apple juice and some croissants", she hit nine sixes, taking just 13 balls for her second fifty. At that time, the men's record for the fastest century stood at 50 balls.

“Just having that belief in yourself,” Dottin, now 33, tells Wisden, when asked what advice she’d give to her younger self. “When I was younger, I did not have that belief.”

When Dottin first put on the maroon kit, it was a different lifetime for the women's game. Her first ODI was the West Indies’ first in three years - such long absences weren't uncommon for women's teams then.

Between the 2005 and 2009 World Cup, the West Indies played just 13 ODIs, the lowest among all teams in that year's competition. Dottin became West Indies Women’s first ODI cap in three years; alongside her, came a batch of players who’d be teammates for a long time: Shakera Selman, Afy Fletcher, Stacy-Ann King, Chedean Nation and Stafanie Taylor all debuted on the same Ireland tour.

Still in her teens when she started out for the West Indies, Dottin was still far from being her confident self. She remembers being “nervous” at the CARIFTA Games, a track-and-field competition for U18 (Now U17) and U20 age-groups. It’s given the Caribbean some of its finest athletes, including Usain Bolt and Veronica Campbell-Brown.

Dottin found success too: at the 2007 edition, she bagged gold in javelin, discus and shot put. She tried out football, badminton, volleyball, netball and hockey, searching for a sport she could make a career out of. It wasn’t unlike her long-time teammates Stafanie and Shakera, who also tried out football before cricket.

“I think I was just naturally strong, because before I came into cricket, I was into athletics and field events. So I think it all just moved over a bit and just made it a lot easier.”

By the time she took the troika of golds home, though, Dottin had already dipped herself into serious cricket. The previous year, she had entered the Barbados U19s, introduced to cricket by Pamela Lavine, the former West Indies cricketer. In fact, Dottin’s game in some way drew inspiration from Lavine’s skillset: hitting hard and bowling fast.

Lavine’s first cousin, the great Gordon Greenidge, was the inspiration. Dottin studied at the school named after the West Indies opening great.

***

Dottin waited patiently as coach Michael Klinger overran his interview with the previous group in the Gujarat Giants team room, keeping herself busy with her phone.

It was 7pm the night before their next game, and the team had just come back from practice. Ridiculous itineraries are a salient feature of these T20 leagues, and Dottin has played a fair few of those adventures.

A controversial false-start two years ago meant this was Dottin’s first taste of the Women’s Premier League. Dottin was supposed to debut in the 2023 edition, but was excluded after Giants publicly announced she was "recovering from a medical situation". Dottin opposed it, tweeting she was "recovering from nothing", after which the Giants stated they couldn't get a medical clearance from her in time, opting for a replacement.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since, and Dottin finally earned her WPL debut with the same franchise.

“I have really enjoyed being here,” she says. “It’s a lot different from other franchises. Sometimes it gets tough to play cricket in India”.

Almost exactly a month after her first WPL match, Dottin was in Mumbai when she was picked by Manchester Original at The Hundred draft.

As one of the greatest ball-strikers the world has ever known, Dottin demands the attention and interest of leagues around the world. But it would have been difficult to picture this three years ago, when she suddenly drew curtains on her West Indies career, calling the team environment “non-conducive”.

“When the fire burns out, one has to take time to reassess their commitment”, her letter said.

Known as World Boss, and always firmly in the thick of things, Dottin decided to pull herself away from the limelight, and took solace in the calmer surroundings of Canada. There was some cricket too, with a local club named Toronto Strikers.

“I mean, it was just a matter of not getting too rusty,” she says.

“Being in a different environment and among different people, being detached also helped. I just tried to control what I can, and left the rest to God, to be honest.”

The path to rediscovery took time, but it healed her in ways only an international cricketer might understand. The fire hadn’t all burnt out.

“After I had my break and stuff, which was actually needed, I let my body and my mind make up the decision. So once they made this decision, and there's no doubt behind it, then I knew that it was time to be back.”

Dottin’s exit and return underlines the big, confusing world of cricketing stardom: the breakneck speed of the sport’s growth has left players with little cushion to adjust. At some level, Jahanara Alam and Sophie Devine’s recent breaks from cricket, days apart from each other, tell you how top athletes just need the space to breathe and be.

“There weren't any regrets, to be honest,” Dottin says about the period away from the game. “Everything happened for a reason, so I needed that time off in order to reset”.

Time away from the top-most level didn’t really dent Dottin’s abilities: in fact, since her two-year exile ended, she averages 43.85 and has struck at a whopping 177.45 in T20Is. It includes a run to the T20 World Cup semi-final with the West Indies, and a 21-ball fifty a few months later, one better than her fastest from way back in 2009.

It is this timelessness that makes Dottin uniquely brilliant: she became a trendsetter at Warner Park all those years ago, and started 2025 with 51* (22) and 49 (20) at the same venue. The only real difference is her batting position: having largely opened between 2018 and 2022, she’s operated in the middle order since her comeback, a role that has carried on during her time with the Gujarat Giants.

“Honestly, it doesn't matter to me,” she says. “It’s what is required of me at the time. So if it is that the team needs me down the order, then that's fine. If they need me on top of the order, that's fine. At the end of the day, no matter where I go, I just have to put my head down and perform.”

Despite what it may seem, Dottin’s batting style isn’t all riotous. “The thing is, I can actually start slow and just pick up,” she says. “I could be like, say 10 off 14 balls, and end the innings with 80 off 50 balls.

“That’s just what separates me a bit from the rest. There are other players who can score quickly or hit the ball as hard as me, or probably even a bit harder.”

In January, she showed just that with her Basseterre bludgeoning of Bangladesh. The first ball she faced, she left alone, prodding the next four back to the bowler. “I was assessing the pitch,” she’d later say.

When she was on 3 off 7, out came the first hit. A couple of steps out, a straight punch of the bat, elbow high, pose intact: the ball sailed over the ropes. Three balls later, she would repeat the same stroke. If you ever wonder where all that arm strength comes from, she does a minimum of 100 pushups every morning.

From 3 off 7, she went to 32 off 18 and then 50 off 21, seven sixes in all. Two days later, she fell for 49 off 20.

For a decade and a half now, Dottin has been at the forefront of power-hitting in the women’s game. No player has hit as many sixes as Dottin in Women’s T20Is. In the elite list of female cricketers with at least 3,000 runs, Dottin’s strike rate is the third-best after Alyssa Healy and Danny Wyatt-Hodge.

In a way, it’s poetic that West Indies Women’s T20I journey began with Dottin: at the first-ever T20 World Cup in 2010, she hit nine sixes (all in that innings). Last October, she hit just as many at the latest edition of the tournament. No West Indies female cricketer has hit more than five in an edition. Timeless.

Dottin once called Viv Richards her idol: years later, she’s cultivated a brand of batting that makes her what young power-hitters look up to. Much like Sir Viv spurred a generation of batters with his fiercely dominating, ahead-of-time outlook, Dottin finds himself around cricketers who would have been inspired by her pioneering approach.

“It is really good to have [to be the senior statesperson]”, Dottin says. “If a player wants to know how you go about your game or just pick your brain, you know what exactly to say or how to comfort them when they want to improve. So it’s really good to have that stature.”

Today, a 24-year-old Qiana Joseph is making waves with her six-hitting muscle, smashing 63 off 36 the same day Dottin hit the 20-ball 49. At the WPL, Chenille Henry struck at a whopping 197, twenty units higher than the next best.

Does the new generation of power-hitters threaten Dottin in any way?

“Nah, no, to be honest,” Dottin says. “It motivates me and gets me more hungry and it really opens my eyes – I am so happy to see other players that are stepping up and scoring runs”.

“I am actually the missing piece for the WPL as a whole,” she cheekily remarked after Gujarat Giants’ first win of the season, smashing 33 off 18 and taking 2-34.

She finished among the top-ten strike-rates in this WPL, even if she didn’t play a starring role with the bat.

At the Giants, she was also in charge of the new ball, partnering with Kashvee Gautam’s big hoopers, and ending as the top two wicket-takers for the team.

Unfortunately, a freak injury – ”five minutes before the toss”, as captain Ash Gardner would later say – pulled her out of the Eliminator clash.

Eventually, it also ruled her out of the World Cup qualifiers, with the West Indies having failed to qualify directly through the 2023-25 ICC Women's Championship. Through that period, most of which coincided with Dottin’s absence, the West Indies managed to win just eight out of 24 matches.

It was to be her first global ICC tournament since she took the break in 2022.

Perhaps, it gives a chance for the younger batch to make a name for themselves. The inaugural U19 World Cup batch from 2023 has already been fast-tracked, including captain Ashmini Munisar, Zaida James and Jannillea Glasgow.

Knowing “World Boss”, she should be back soon, challenging and outmuscling teammates ten years younger.

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