Courtesy: CWI
Hayley Matthews, the West Indies captain, suffered a left shoulder issue during the first WODI of the three-match series against England at the County Ground in Derby towards the end of last month. After sitting out of the second WODI at the Grace Road in Leicester on Wednesday, June 4, to tend to the injury, there is a doubt raised on her involvement in the third and final match of the series, which will be played in just three days time at the County Ground in Taunton.
Notably, West Indies have already lost the series to England, who got the better of them in the first two WODIs with big margins of 108 and 143 runs respectively after posting a total well in excess of 300 runs. With that, while the involvement of Hayley Matthews in the third WODI might not be advised if her injury is serious, West Indies need her to avoid a whitewash across formats after losing the three-match WT20I series 3-0 to England.
Hayley Matthews was declared player of the WT20I series despite West Indies not winning a game
Despite the heavy defeat in the WT20I series, Hayley Matthews was given the player of the series award for scoring 177 runs at a strike-rate of 137.20 and an average of 88.50 in just three innings, including a hundred in the opening match. The West Indies captain also performed brilliantly with her all-round game in the final WT20I, scoring 71 runs while taking three wickets for 32 runs in her four-over spell.
As per the report published in ESPNcricinfo, Hayley Mathews is set to meet a specialist in London on Thursday, June 5, to get her left shoulder assessed, which will give her an idea about how to approach the next few days and weeks. Shane Deitz, the head coach of the West Indies’ women cricket team, was quoted as saying on the matter after defeat in second WODI, “She's going to London tomorrow morning, so we'll know more then. Hopefully we'll get some good news tomorrow.”
“I was hoping she'd be okay today, but she got on the team bus and looked terrible so we sent her back to bed," Deitz said. "Hopefully she'll come good in a couple of days. She played really good the other day. She's getting better as time goes on in the team so fingers crossed. I'm pretty sure she'll be right for the next game,” he added.
