DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – Crick­et’s world or­gan­is­ing body, the ICC an­nounced on Fri­day that West In­dies Women’s cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews was its Women’s Play­er-of-the-Month for Oc­to­ber.

The 25-year-old all-rounder de­fied a short­list that al­so fea­tured Nahi­da Akhter of Bangladesh and Amelia Kerr of New Zealand to earn the award for her star­ring role in the Caribbean side’s Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al se­ries against hosts Aus­tralia.

The top-ranked all-rounder in the Women’s T20I Play­er Rank­ings con­sis­tent­ly thwart­ed the Aus­tralians with pow­er-hit­ting and im­por­tant wick­ets, and won the Play­er-of-the-Se­ries award, and was a shoo-in for her sec­ond Play­er-of-the-Match prize.

“I’m very grate­ful to have re­ceived the ICC Women’s Play­er-of-the-Month award for Oc­to­ber,” she said in the ICC me­dia re­lease mak­ing the an­nounce­ment.

“I love pulling on the West In­dies jer­sey. Every time I do wear that ma­roon and gold, it def­i­nite­ly adds an ex­tra lay­er where you can go out there and per­form well, not on­ly for your­self and for the team, but in know­ing how much crick­et means to the peo­ple of the Caribbean and how much it can bring peo­ple to­geth­er.”

Matthews car­ried her bat and was left strand­ed on 99 ag­o­nis­ing­ly missed out on a hun­dred, and West In­dies Women were swept aside by eight wick­ets in the first T20I against the Aussies on Oc­to­ber 1 at North Syd­ney Oval.

She then slammed an in­cred­i­ble 132 and to lead her side in the high­est suc­cess­ful run chase of all-time in women’s T20Is against the world cham­pi­ons the fol­low­ing day.

Matthews cracked 20 fours and five six­es from 64 balls in a breath-tak­ing as­sault on the Aus­tralian bowl­ing, and the Caribbean side suc­cess­ful­ly chased 213 to se­cure a sev­en-wick­et win in the sec­ond T20I at North Syd­ney Oval to lev­el the three-match se­ries 1-1.

It came af­ter Matthews took three for 36 from her al­lot­ted four overs with her off-spin when Aus­tralia Women piled up 212 for six af­ter they were put in to bat and made her a straight­for­ward choice for her sev­enth suc­ces­sive Play­er-of-the-Match award in T20s.

She sparkled again with 79 off 40 balls to win an­oth­er Play­er-of-the-Match award and end the month with 310 runs in the se­ries at an av­er­age of 155, but West In­dies Women went down by 47 runs and sur­ren­dered the se­ries 2-1.

Need­ing a win to clinch a his­toric se­ries suc­cess at Al­lan Bor­der Field, the Caribbean side fell short of their tar­get of 191, dis­missed for 143 off the penul­ti­mate ball of the run chase.

“It was pret­ty spe­cial go­ing out there in Aus­tralia and be­ing able to per­form the way that I did, but know­ing how many peo­ple’s faces I was able to put a smile on back home in the Caribbean, that’s what means the most to me,” Matthews said.

Matthews was crowned fol­low­ing votes cast by glob­al fans reg­is­tered at icc-crick­et.com and a spe­cial­ist pan­el com­pris­ing ICC Hall of Famers, for­mer in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers, and me­dia rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

CMC