19 February - Paarl - West Indies Captain Hayley Matthews post-match press conference
[Reporter]
Hayley, just in terms of the moment where you thought maybe you guys had things under control, when would you say that was?
[Hayley Matthews]
I don't think ever. We know it's a game of cricket, and the momentum could change at any point in time. We knew Pakistan still had dangerous batters at the crease, and we had to be on our mark for as long as possible to be able to win the game at the end.
[Reporter]
And in terms of the total that you guys had, I mean, how far short do you think you were? I mean, you weren't in the end, but...
[Hayley Matthews]
I think with the start we had, we probably accepted that we were at least 20 runs short. We felt like we should have, for sure, gotten to at least 135, 140, but at the same time, I think before we went out on the field, we had a pretty long chat, speaking about the fight that we had to show. If we wanted to compete in the game, speaking about how the bowlers and the fielders had to be on our mark and where we had to go right to win the game, and I think it was a complete team effort. I think we fielded pretty well. We bowled pretty well. All the bowlers tripped in and yeah, it was just really good to see Karishma Ramharack really put up her hand once again for the third game in a row, and she's been beautiful for the entire tournament with the ball.
[Reporter]
Yeah, just on that, how did you manage the bowlers, especially, I mean, you would have known that the spinners would have a big role to play.
[Hayley Matthews]
Yeah, 100%. I think, look, we tried to squeeze really, really early on. I gave myself three in the beginning, just trying to squeeze and trust that the Pacers will be able to hold it together in the end. Afy Fletcher probably didn't have as good as a game she wanted in the previous two, but look, she bounced back really well today to come and give us exactly what we needed with the ball. And yeah, like I keep saying, just kudos to all the bowlers, the way the spinners held it together, and then the pacers were able to keep their cool at the end, even though it got a bit close.
[Reporter]
Where to now for West Indies? I mean, your chances of progressing are pretty small now, but what's the goal for the next year or 18 months?
[Hayley Matthews]
I think for now, just sit back and wait and see what the other results go like in this tournament. By the same time, when we go back home, kind of just regroup and get back on the training part, we obviously have a lot of young players within our squad that has so much development to do, and the more we're able to work on that, the quicker that these players are able to develop. And yeah, I think that's just the main goals for us right now, continue getting those youngsters and those younger players developing and moving in the right direction that as a team, we can continuously move forward as well.
[Reporter]
Your most favourite moment of this World Cup, you guys taking home? Having all the young players in the team and you being the role model, what would that be?
[Hayley Matthews]
I feel like there's been a lot of them. Obviously, the last two games definitely meant a lot to us. I said in the last press conference that we spoke about coming in here with two hard games up front, but the measure of what kind of team we really were was going to be sorted out by how these last two games went, and I just think the fight that I saw today was probably one of the favourite moments for me. Defending 118 - 119 is never, ever going to be easy, and the way that we really went out there and threw our bodies at the ball, the way our bowlers stepped up to the plate where we knew it was going to be a tough task was just beautiful, not only to be a part of, but to watch the other girls do it as well and hold their own was just a brilliant sight to see.
[Reporter]
At 118, what is the advice that Courtney Walsh, the great Courtney Walsh, gave you, point number one? And point number two, were you guys lucky or Pakistan just squandered their chances? Because you guys were losing runs and also missed out on a couple of close run-out chances.
[Hayley Matthews]
I think Courtney, he kind of just told us to keep it tight. Chasing 118, we always knew bowlers were going to have to be on par, and that's the message that he sent across, but at the same time, we got to keep believing, and I wouldn't say we're lucky. Look, we went out there and we bowled what we had to do, how we had to bowl and did what we had to do and complement our bowlers 100 percent for doing that. I think we were in the areas that we wanted to be in for majority of the time, and I wouldn't take anything away from our bowlers.
[Reporter]
25 runs from 10th over to 15th over, 25 runs, just 25 runs in a crucial match. Do you think you guys played a tad bit slow from the 10th to the 15th over?
[Hayley Matthews]
How many runs was it?
[Reporter]
[Hayley Matthews]
I mean, yeah, we would like to score a bit quicker than that, but I mean, at the end of the day, it's cricket. Obviously, there's some areas that we definitely need to improve on, and that's going to be one of them. We haven't finished as well as we would like to this entire World Cup with the bat, but now is a great opportunity for us to go and regroup. We keep saying we have a lot of young inexperienced players within the team, and experiences like this are just going to help us learn more and more, and that's exactly what we plan on doing moving forward.
[Reporter]
Just with all the various leagues that are coming around the world, do you think that it will help West Indies cricket by the fact that more girls will be playing in the leagues? And would you get to a position where you only play the leagues and then come in for national teams?
[Hayley Matthews]
Yeah, I mean, hopefully a lot more of our girls can get into these leagues. I think a lot of people look at these leagues as negatives taken away from international cricket, but I think for a team like West Indies that may not have the best domestic system, I think these leagues can be very fruitful and very helpful for us. I know they certainly helped me from a young international player growing up, playing in these leagues from 17 - 18 years old, and I can only hope that for the rest of the team, the girls get the opportunity to do the same things. And you know, I experienced playing cricket all over the world and learning from it as well.
[Reporter]
Today is a very good match, audience very enjoyed. Most of the audience support to the Pakistan cricket team. And what is that today's very good point for the victory? What is the very loosest point, very weak point of Pakistan, please describe in your thinking about that today match?
[Hayley Matthews]
Oh, what's the good point of my victory? I can't speak on what Pakistan's low point might been. I mean, that's up to them and knowing their standards and what they wanted to do. But look, I think for the West Indies, we definitely came out there in the power play. We spoke about having them maybe one or two wickets down, but most importantly, trying to get the runs restricted as much as we could in the power play. I think we were able to go there, do exactly that and set ourselves up for a really good finish.
[Reporter]
In terms of total, you put on the board, which was not quite competitive for a team like Pakistan, but you bowled very well and those conceding those dot balls - What do you think that what was the turning point of the match?
[Hayley Matthews]
I guess for us winning the game, the turning point would have probably had to be, like I mentioned, the power play before. Just being able to put them under pressure early on and set them on the back foot. I think any time they were coming out to chase 119, they were always ahead of us and ahead of the game. And I think after a really strong power play, we were able to kind of regain some sort of control and some sort of momentum to work off of as well.
[Reporter]
Can you tell us something about that catch that dismissed Sidra Amin?
[Hayley Matthews]
Yeah, I just think it's one of those ones that's shot midwicket - and the ball gets hit pretty hard and you kind of react to it. And I just tried to get in a really strong position, get my hands behind the ball and thankfully it happened to hit the middle of the palm. So, coming into the game, we spoke about how fielding was going to be a very, very important part. Yeah, I think key moments like that showed that how crucial it was.
[Reporter]
So, two wins in the latter part of the tournament. We saw a different West Indies today in the field, the girls were really energetic. So, what was the motive behind that?
[Hayley Matthews]
I think we just kind of knew we had to be, we really wanted to win this game against Pakistan, not taking away from any of the other games, but we knew walking into this tournament, this was one of the games where we knew if we really put our head down, we had a serious chance. And I think after being disappointed in that first innings with the total we put up, everyone knew that the 70% we might have given with the bat, we had to take that extra 30% and give it in the field. So, I think that's what really motivated us, almost took our kind of disappointment and just turned it into motivation in the fielding innings.
[Reporter]
So it was a rough patch for you guys, now you have one, two consecutive ones, you still have a slim chance of qualifying, however, how do you rate the West Indies cricket going forward after the tournament?
[Hayley Matthews]
I think coming into this tournament, the scores we were putting up, the way we were batting wasn't great. And I think even though we have a lot of room to improve still, we would have seen some improvements throughout this tournament, which has been good to see and we still have a lot of progress that can be made, but I think this World Cup is definitely done and it's doing a lot for the girls with their learning. So much learning has taken place within the dressing room and out on the field as well and we can only continue to hope that we're moving in the right direction. I think that's our main goal right now and even within our losses, we just really tried to take all the positives out of it that we can learn from them.
[Reporter]
Quick question, Hayley, a win against Pakistan in a World Cup, they've been known to sort of knock West Indies out in the previous two tournaments that we've had. How much of a relief is it to get this win over them today?
[Hayley Matthews]
Yeah, it's huge. I think we just kind of came in with a never say die attitude. We know Pakistan has gotten the best of us in World Cups previously, but at the same time we knew it's a team that we compete with really well in bilateral series and we knew once we brought our A game, we were going to have a really good chance at winning this game today. We didn't completely hit our A game, but the bowlers really stepped up to the plate and won the game for us. That's what we could really say. The bowlers won the game for us, which was good to see and sometimes you kind of just need that from a bowling unit, especially a team like ours where we are exactly hitting our strides exactly where we want to really bat. So yeah, just kudos to all the bowlers for really putting their hands up today.