West Indies women qualify for Super Sixes
Published: Friday | March 13, 2009
The West Indies qualified for the Super Six stage of the ICC's Women's World Cup when they turned in another spirited performance against Australia yesterday.
Despite losing to the defending champions by 56 runs, the Windies put up a challenge to show they are no pushovers. They finished third in Group A behind New Zealand and Australia. They qualified by virtue of their first-round win over South Africa, who ended bottom of the group.
51 off just 54 balls
Yesterday, Deandra Dottin, the 17-year-old all-rounder, hit 51 off just 54 balls with four sixes as the Windies made 164-7 in reply to 211-7. It was another good match for Stafanie Taylor, the other 17-year-old in the team. She took 2-35 with her off-spinners to move to eight wickets for the tournament. The Jamaican also made 32 at the top of the batting order.
West Indies captain Merissa Aguilleira said that she was delighted the team made it into the second round and they will look for more improvement. The open the Super Six on Saturday (Friday night Caribbean Time) against Pakistan at Drummoyne.
"I am very pleased with our team performance. The girls have been working really hard. I think the more matches we play the better we will do and we are looking forward to our remaining matches. I think we have surprised the rest of the teams as I think most people thought they would just walk over us, but we have shown them that we have the ability to do well," she said.
"We are going into the Pakistan game very hard. We know what we have to do and we are going to achieve it. I donŐt know much about Pakistan. I have been hearing a bit about them and reading about their statistics but I don't know much about the Pakistan players. We will look at the video and plan from there."
The wicket-keeper also noted that the aim ahead of the tournament was to make it to the Super Sixes. Now that this has been achieved they will be looking to move one step further.
"The team's focus was to get to the Super Sixes, which we are in, and then take one game at a time. We are not going to put too much pressure on ourselves, as we are an inexperienced team, so we will just take one step at a time," she said.
