CAN­TER­BURY – West In­dies Women’s cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews hit a bril­liant, un­beat­en cen­tu­ry but it was not enough to save her side from be­ing thumped by Eng­land Women by eight wick­ets in the open­ing Women’s T20I in Eng­land on Wednes­day.

Matthews bat­ted through the en­tire in­nings on her way to reg­is­ter­ing her third T20I cen­tu­ry, fin­ish­ing on 100 not out to al­most sin­gle­hand­ed­ly get West In­dies Women up to 146 for sev­en from their 20 overs af­ter they were sent in to bat.

How­ev­er, Sophia Dunk­ley re­spond­ed by blast­ing an un­beat­en 81 and Heather Knight scored 43 not out, as the home side cruised to 150 for two with 21 balls to spare.

The win helped Eng­land Women draw first blood and go 1-0 up in the best-of-three-se­ries.

With­out the ser­vices of pow­er hit­ters De­an­dra Dot­tin and Chinelle Hen­ry, much of the bat­ting re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was al­ways go­ing to be on Matthews.

The West In­dies start­ed promis­ing­ly, with Matthews and Qiana Joseph tak­ing the score to 17-0 af­ter three overs.

Lau­ren Bell end­ed the part­ner­ship by hav­ing Joseph caught for two in the next over and two balls lat­er she had Zai­da James caught be­hind to leave the Windies 17 for two.

The loss of wick­ets didn’t slow Matthews, who hit spin­ner Char­lie Dean for three suc­ces­sive fours in the sixth over to move to 33 off 24 balls.

Debu­tant Realean­na Grim­mond scored four runs be­fore she was need­less­ly run out with the score on 47 as Eng­land re­mained in con­trol of the con­test.

Matthews even­tu­al­ly brought up her half cen­tu­ry off 38 balls when she picked up a sin­gle off the bowl­ing of Emi­ly Ar­lott, who was al­so mak­ing her de­but.

West In­dies then lost the wick­ets of Shabi­ka Gajn­abi, Aaliyah Al­leyne and Jan­nil­lea Glas­gow in quick suc­ces­sion to slump to 87 for six in the 14th over.

But Matthews found a re­li­able part­ner in Mandy Man­gru and the two added 47 runs for the sev­enth wick­et to get West In­dies past the 100 mark.

Not to be de­nied, Matthews smashed Is­sy Wong for two bound­aries in the 18th over.

She en­tered the last over need­ing 11 runs to get to her cen­tu­ry, which she did by scam­per­ing a sin­gle off the last ball of the in­nings.

In all, she faced 67 balls and struck 16 bound­aries and one six.

Bell was Eng­land’s best bowler with 2-29 from her four overs.

Eng­land Women then got off to a speedy start with open­ers Dan­ni Wy­att-Hodge and Dunk­ley putting on 51 runs in­side six overs.

James reaped suc­cess for West In­dies by bowl­ing Wy­att-Hodge for 17 and five runs lat­er spin­ner Afy Fletch­er had cap­tain Nat Sciv­er-Brunt caught for a duck to leave Eng­land 56 for two.

But Dunk­ley and Knight en­sured there would be no fur­ther loss­es in an un­beat­en 94-run part­ner­ship that de­flat­ed their op­po­nents and ef­fec­tive­ly sealed the con­test.

Dunk­ley faced 56 balls and hit 12 bound­aries while Knight hit six fours in the 27 balls she faced.

CMC

Scores

WEST IN­DIES WOMEN 146-7 in 20 overs (Hay­ley Matthews 100 not out, Mandy Man­gru 17, Shabi­ka Gajn­abi 11; Lau­ren Bell 2-29).

ENG­LAND WOMEN 150-2 in 16.3 overs (Sophia Dunk­ley 81 not out, Heather Knight 43 not out, Dan­ni Wy­att-Hodge 17).

Eng­land Women won by eight wick­ets.