Struggling WI Women aiming to avoid whitewash against England

West Indies Women face the ignominy of a series whitewash when they face England’s Women in the final of five T20 Internationals on Wednesday in Derby. The Caribbean side have struggled throughout the series, and they now face the tough task of avoiding a series sweep.

England’s Women have been utterly dominant throughout the series, winning all four games by comfortable margins. England have batted first all series, scoring a 150+ total every time with their lowest being 151-8 and the highest 166-6.

By contrast, West Indies Women’s highest total has been 134-5, although they have managed to bat out the 20 overs on every single occasion. England won the first two matches by 47 runs, the third by 20 and the fourth by 44 runs.

The stark contrast has been in the batting effort of the two sides- while Deandra Dottin leads the series runs chart with 174 runs, the next best by a West Indian batter is Stafanie Taylor’s 63.

England have four batters with over 100 runs in the series, their top and middle-order demonstrating the consistency that has been lacking by West Indies Women.

Dottin’s high scores of 69, 63 and 38 aside, only Cheadan Nation has managed to get to 30, while the Caribbean side’s seasoned batters Taylor and Hayley Matthews have combined for just 101 runs in eight innings.

Meanwhile, West Indies captain Taylor, is scratching her head for answers as she looks to avoid the 5-0 series sweep.

After making three changes ahead of the fourth match, with Aaliyah Alleyne, Karishma Ramharack and Shabika Gajnabi coming in for Afy Fletcher, Chinelle Henry and Shakera Selman, Taylor didn’t rule out the possibility of more.

“I’m not sure what the selection is going to be like, but it’s the last game and we probably have players here who haven’t played much,” she told Sky Sports.

“We still want to give players exposure but at the same time you want to keep that core group as well. You don’t want it to be all fresh faces. [I’m] not sure what it’s going to look like, but we’ll see.

“I will need more reflection really, just sitting down in my room. But right now it’s pretty much around bowling and batting. We’re still bowling in good areas, but the last five overs they are still beating us.

“The batting is still not coming. We’re still leaving it up to one person to get most of the runs, and we didn’t get off to a good start. Today (Monday) was a perfect time for the other batters to step up, but that just wasn’t the case.”

The fifth and final game of the series will start at 13:00h Caribbean time tomorrow (Wednesday, September 30)