DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates — West In­dies Women’s cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews has com­mend­ed the Caribbean side for show­ing char­ac­ter af­ter suf­fer­ing a de­flat­ing ten-wick­et loss to South Africa in their open­ing match of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

Since that de­feat, the West In­dies have reg­is­tered em­phat­ic vic­to­ries over Scot­land and Bangladesh and cur­rent­ly sit atop Group B.

Speak­ing at a post-match press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day af­ter their eight-wick­et win over Bangladesh at the Shar­jah Crick­et Sta­di­um, Matthews said she was im­pressed with the way the team had re­cov­ered.

“Af­ter that first de­feat, we did speak a lot about how we want­ed to come back and how we want­ed to do it as a team, and I think every­one was up for the chal­lenge from that mo­ment.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly in a World Cup, you lose one game ear­ly on it does put the pres­sure on, but I think the team has been won­der­ful with the way they have han­dled the pres­sure,” Matthews said.

“Every­one is in a good mood, every­one is in good spir­its, and every­one is up for the chal­lenge. That’s been the biggest thing.

“I think a lot of the time when you do get in­to trou­ble sit­u­a­tions, play­ers and the team can some­times shy from it, but I think the way the girls have stepped up and re­al­ly tried to put in per­for­mances and take the at­tack to the oth­er team, it has been great to see,” the skip­per added.

Matthews said there had been a com­plete shift in the mind­set of the team and it could be seen in their per­for­mances on the field.

“Just our at­ti­tude at the crease, want­i­ng to play fear­less­ly and want­i­ng to take the game to the oth­er teams.

“We could have been stuck on the back­foot af­ter that first match, but we just want­ed to throw the at­tack and come back at the oth­er teams…” Matthews main­tained.

“I think the girls have done a great job of be­ing able to bounce back and re­al­ly have that at­ti­tude and that fight with­in them and we’re ob­vi­ous­ly go­ing to try to take that in­to the next match against Eng­land.

“We know how cru­cial that is and how big of a match that is, but we want to try to have the same at­ti­tude even against bet­ter teams,” she added.

Matthews al­so de­fend­ed the de­ci­sion to con­tin­ue to keep Stafanie Tay­lor in the line­up, de­spite the vet­er­an bat­tling a leg in­jury.

She said Tay­lor, who be­came the first West In­di­an woman to score 1,000 runs in T20 World Cups in the match against Bangladesh be­fore re­tir­ing hurt, was in­valu­able to the team.

“The doc­tors and the phys­ios have been man­ag­ing it along with her of course, and I think there was a con­ver­sa­tion at half time more around what she want­ed to do and if she was com­fort­able go­ing out to bat,” Matthews said.

“I think she’s been fan­tas­tic with that the whole tour­na­ment, want­i­ng to get out on the park and do the job even though she’s strug­gling a bit with an in­jury. She’s ob­vi­ous­ly very, very im­por­tant to the team and what we do as a group, so it’s great to have her out there.” (CMC)