For­mer cham­pi­ons West In­dies will start their In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) T20 Women’s World Cup cam­paign against South Africa in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, Dubai on Fri­day from 6 am (T&T Time).

The 2016 cham­pi­ons have been drawn in Group B with South Africa, Eng­land, Bangladesh, and Scot­land.

West In­dies will play Scot­land on 6 Oc­to­ber, be­fore match­es against Bangladesh (10 Oc­to­ber) and Eng­land.

Group A will com­prise Aus­tralia, In­dia, New Zealand, Pak­istan, and Sri Lan­ka.

Each team will play four group match­es, with the top two teams from each group mov­ing in­to the semi­fi­nals.

The tour­na­ment, which has been moved to the UAE af­ter po­lit­i­cal un­rest in Bangladesh, is set to run from 3-20 Oc­to­ber.

Mean­while, the West In­dies are the on­ly side apart from Eng­land to have won a T20 World Cup to their names in the mid­dle of the Aus­tralian dom­i­nance. But the 2016 cham­pi­ons have not played a T20I since June this year, when they toured Sri Lan­ka in a 2-1 se­ries win.

The ma­jor talk­ing point ahead of the World Cup was the in­clu­sion of De­an­dra Dot­tin, who had abrupt­ly re­tired in 2022. The ‘World Boss’, as she is known, scored 119 runs in the Women’s Caribbean Pre­mier League this year (WC­PL). But as her on­ly out­ing with the bat in the warm-up games was a first-ball duck against Aus­tralia, she will be keen to prove a point that she still be­longs at this lev­el.

The West In­dies lost both their warm-up games in the lead-up to the tour­na­ment against Aus­tralia and In­dia. Av­er­ag­ing on­ly 124 runs with the bat since the last T20 World Cup in South Africa, they would hope to be more ex­plo­sive with the bat thanks to the fire­pow­er they can boast of.

Eight years ago in Kolkata, 18-year-old Hay­ley Matthews scored a match-win­ning 66 as West In­dies stopped the Aus­tralian brigade from win­ning three con­sec­u­tive ti­tles at the time. Now as cap­tain, she will hope to re­peat the feat of stop­ping a fourth con­sec­u­tive Aus­tralian tri­umph.

Hay­ley Matthews, who has been in ter­rif­ic form over the last six months, was the high­est run-get­ter in the bi­lat­er­al tours against Pak­istan (205 runs in five games) and Sri Lan­ka (108 runs in three match­es). 

She suc­cess­ful­ly al­so led the Bar­ba­dos Roy­als to vic­to­ry in the WC­PL in Au­gust. A pow­er­ful ball strik­er who can al­so turn her arm over with some off-breaks, she would hope to con­tin­ue her pur­ple patch.

West In­dies have a poor win-loss ra­tio against Eng­land of 8-19 and one no-re­sult in 28 games played. They were al­so clean-swept 5-0 by Eng­land at home in De­cem­ber 2022 and bowled out for 43 in the fi­nal T20I as well. The West In­dies would be rar­ing to go one bet­ter against Eng­land at the world stage.

Full Squad: Hay­ley Matthews (c), She­maine Camp­belle, Aaliyah Al­leyne, Afy Fletch­er, Ash­mi­ni Mu­nis­ar, Chedean Na­tion, Chinelle Hen­ry, De­an­dra Dot­tin, Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, Mandy Man­gru, Ner­is­sa Crafton, Qiana Joseph, Shamil­ia Con­nell, Stafanie Tay­lor, Zai­da James

Re­main­der of group sched­ule

vs Scot­land, Oc­to­ber 6 in Dubai at 6 PM lo­cal | 7:30 PM IST

vs Bangladesh, Oc­to­ber 10 in Shar­jah at 6 PM lo­cal | 7:30 PM IST

vs Eng­land, Oc­to­ber 15 in Dubai at 6 PM lo­cal | 7:30 PM IST