West Indies Women all-rounder, Hayley Matthews has credited preparation for her second Women’s One Day International (WODI) century.
Matthews, 23, scored an unbeaten 100 yesterday to see West Indies to an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five match series against Pakistan Women.
“I’m am really excited, I’ve been working hard over the past couple of months to improve on my batting and my consistency and it is really good to see it paying off,” she said after getting to her milestone.
Only five women from West Indies have scored ODI tons, with Matthews being among two to reach triple figures more than once. Stafanie Taylor, who scored her sixth ton in the format in the second ODI is the other to have more than one century.
Matthews scored her first ton back in 2018 but reached her second just seven innings later. The opener disclosed that she was not nervous throughout most of her innings but admitted that once she crossed into the 90s, with just 10 runs to win and with the rain setting up in the background, she was a bit anxious knowing she was five runs short of triple figures.
“I never doubted I was going to get my hundred and I wanted to stay confident throughout my innings and I just tried my best to do so,” she revealed.
She noted that the wicket was good to bat on and it was about application when at the crease after picking up 2-30 with her off-spin.
“I think we all knew as batters if we applied ourselves, spent some time at the crease and batted some overs that the wicket was good enough that if we bat normally the runs was going to come and that was the mindset we had going out there…Me personally I wanted to spend a lot of time at the crease and I did that and the runs was able to come with it,” she said.
Matthews shared in a 106-run second wicket partnership with Britney Cooper (45), having featured in an opening partnership of 56 with Kyshona Knight (18).
The right hander has now set sights on keeping the visitors winless as they head into the final two matches of the tour.
The Barbadian said, “It’s amazing to be able to win the T20I series 3-0 and to be able to come and win this series is massive for us now and I just hope that we can carry this form into the next two games and get a whitewash as well.”
