HARARE, Zim­bab­we — West In­dies Women’s Cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews says the Caribbean side is tar­get­ing a full six points from their three-match ICC Women’s Cham­pi­onship ODI se­ries against Zim­bab­we, but warns they can­not af­ford to un­der­es­ti­mate the hosts.

The se­ries, which forms part of the qual­i­fi­ca­tion path­way for the next Women’s Crick­et World Cup, bowls off on Thurs­day at Harare Sports Club at 3.30 am ECT.

Speak­ing to the me­dia ahead of the open­er, Matthews ex­pressed the team’s ea­ger­ness to re­turn to Zim­bab­we, not­ing that the last vis­it for the World Cup Qual­i­fiers was a brief one.

“The first op­por­tu­ni­ty that we do get to play against Zim­bab­we in a se­ries like this, so it’s a lot to look for­ward to,” Matthews said. “Last time we were in Zim­bab­we for the qual­i­fiers, we were in and out pret­ty quick­ly. So I think all the girls are hap­py to be back, look­ing for­ward to a se­ries.”

Matthews ac­knowl­edged the threat posed by a Zim­bab­wean side that is in its first year with­in the Cham­pi­onship cy­cle, em­pha­sis­ing that the West In­dies must be at their best to se­cure cru­cial points.

“Zim­bab­we is ob­vi­ous­ly a grow­ing team. I know they’re cer­tain­ly go­ing to be look­ing to come out hard and play some re­al­ly good crick­et, and they’re cer­tain­ly a side that we can’t un­der­es­ti­mate, even though they’re pret­ty new,” she said. “We’re still go­ing to need to be play­ing re­al­ly well. But I think as a group, we’re all pret­ty ex­cit­ed to be here. Con­di­tions pret­ty sim­i­lar to back home with the heat. So, yeah, we’re look­ing for­ward to it.”

The West In­dies skip­per high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of the se­ries in the con­text of the Cham­pi­onship stand­ings, where au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the next World Cup is the ul­ti­mate prize.

“The games here are go­ing to be very im­por­tant. I think when you look at where we are in the ta­ble, ob­vi­ous­ly want­i­ng au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion for that next World Cup. So we must try to come down here and be able to take all six points,” Matthews stat­ed.

“That’s cer­tain­ly the goal for us. It’ll put us in a much bet­ter place on the ta­ble. So three re­al­ly im­por­tant games, and as I said, we cer­tain­ly can’t un­der­es­ti­mate Zim­bab­we. But yeah, a se­ries where we’re look­ing to come out here and hope­ful­ly go back home smil­ing with all six of those points.”

Mean­while, Zim­bab­we Cap­tain Josephine Nko­mo is em­brac­ing the his­toric na­ture of the se­ries, which marks the na­tion’s first home tour un­der the Fu­ture Tours Pro­gramme (FTP).

“I’m su­per ex­cit­ed. What makes it more spe­cial is that it’s on home turf, and it’s our first home FTP tour,” Nko­mo said. “Well, the goal is just to com­pete, just go out there, and just be pos­i­tive. At the end of the day, crick­et is a game of bat and ball, and not names or any­thing like that.”

CMC