30 March - Wellington - West Indies players Stafanie Taylor and Hayley Matthews post-match press conference
Reporter: What do you think cost you today? Obviously, no wickets in the power play? Was that a big thing for you?
Stafanie Taylor: Well, obviously, it would have been, I thought the way the Aussies went about the power play, and in the middle there they kind of deflated us. And we had chances, but not taking those chances as well. Didn't go the way we would like. And hence, how we went about in the backend, with how many wickets they had in hand - pretty much put that down and a set total like that.
Reporter: And what was the message at the break, when you were going out to chase 306? What was the message to the battlers?
Stafanie: I think for us it was, knowing that probably our top four were going have to bat all the overs, if you wanted a chance at chasing down that total. Obviously, chasing over 300 in a 50 over game is never easy, further more it being 45 overs. But every time we go to bat, we got to have belief that we can get the total - But yeah, we probably didn't have the start that we wanted to - and a bit slower in the middle as well, which stopped us from reaching that target.
Reporter: Hayley, you said before the match that being here was something you perhaps hadn't imagined to be able to do 12 months ago. So, does reaching a World Cup semifinal still count as a success for the team?
Hayley: Yeah, definitely. Obviously, we will like to go further. But I think looking back on this team's journey, playing a series against South Africa last year, getting drafted in that, even in terms of individual growth, we've seen so many of our players, taking steps for it and becoming better players becoming more consistent. And there's just so many positives that we can take out of this tournament for us, which is really heartening to see, beating a team like New Zealand and then being able to beat a team like England right after these are things that we couldn't imagine doing a year ago. So yeah, it was just really, really good to be a part of the growth that this team has had over the last year. And I genuinely do think that if we continue moving in this direction, yeah, it's only it's only bigger things for us. When you speak about the advantages that some of the other teams would have over us like Australia, or England, with their domestic structure and the amount of talent that they have to pull from within their pools. And then you look at us competing against teams like that. It just shows the fight and the heart that we really do have as a team.
Reporter: Stafanie, you touched on it there. But what is your overriding feeling or takeaway from the tournament as a whole?
Stafanie: I think what Haley said, being able Well, we beat two of the top teams, and I reckon no one expected that. And to be in the semifinals, no one expected that. I think the way we played throughout the tournament has been really good, had some downs and that happens - it's about learning. And I believe that we are still learning. And I'm very proud of the way we play. We still have more to go. So, yeah, you’ll see us around?
Reporter: I just had one common - you've spoken about all the improvements that WI have made in the last year, and it's gotten you to the semifinals. So what would you like to see happen in the immediate future? Or maybe in the like, next year or two, in terms of taking the next step, more matches, the CPL coming up? Things like that? What are the changes that you would like to see?
Hayley: I think when we talk about moving forward, we've seen a lot international ODI stuff over the last year, which has obviously been really helpful. We saw cricket West Indies announcing the CPL coming up in a couple of months, which is really good to see and obviously really good initiatives for women's cricket as well. And yeah, I think things like those are only going to help with our growth. But yeah, I reckon the more cricket we can play at a lower level to the domestic stuff, which is why CPL is going to be so big for us, the batting hopefully we can get some more young girls coming through the system. Um, I think obviously in this, this batch of players, this may be a lot of their last World Cup. Not sure but at the same time, it would be really good if we could start to I guess, nurture some younger players throughout the domestic cricket season and yeah, get some more people filtering into to West Indies stuff.
Reporter: My question is Haley to you that you top the batting and bowling stats charts for West Indies and how do you look at your personal performance in the World Cup given you were not sure you are going to open in most of the matches and then to come back and being part of as one of the best spinners in the world and extension of that question to Staphanie, how good is it to have some someone like her in your team and then to Captain her in all important tournaments?
Hayley: Yeah, I think coming into the tournament, I felt like I was in a pretty good space, as an all-rounder and I was pretty happy to get off to a good start In that first match against New Zealand, getting the 100. And picking up a couple of wickets as well, I think probably if I was to sit back and analyze my entire tournament, with the start I had, I probably would have wanted to score a bit more runs. By the same time, I probably was able to exceed a couple of expectations with the ball too. So I think overall, I'm just pretty grateful that I was able to have a good tournament, but at the same time, yet still hungry to improve and want to do even better and continuously learning even more.
Stafanie: I think to help someone like Hayley, I've known Hayley for quite some time, probably about 10 or 30. So I've really watched her grow and to see growth in her game has been really good. She will tell you that probably I'm one of the person who is always behind her, whether she fail or whether she score runs I’m one of our biggest supporter, and it's really nice to have such addition to the squad. Before it was just D and I and it's not just Hayley but you have others as well - I see growth in other players, you have Shemaine Campbell and Chedean who chipped in as well. So it was really nice to have those players. But for someone like Hayley's it's even nicer. And whenever I call on her she delivers- so yeah.
Reporter: In the six, eight months lead up to the World Cup, the constant messaging, it felt like has been the growth of the individual players within the team while gelling together and coming together as a group of players within the team. Dottin once said that this team is closer than ever. And when the team is together, it's very hard to beat them. How looking back over the last eight months, how do you look at the journey of coming together as a team and the growth of individual players who rose to the occasion through the course of the World Cup?
Hayley: I think yeah, looking back at our journey, it definitely wasn't an easy road over the last year. I think like I said, good series against Pakistan then went on to South Africa probably didn't have the best one. And but just to get to this World Cup alone, we had to go through the World Cup qualifiers. Just as that started there was the problem with COVID. And I think everyone had to try and get out to Zimbabwe as quickly as possible, having to endure that. And then having to spend 14 days in quarantine as a team before getting back home just maybe a couple of days before Christmas. So yeah, look, over the last eight months we've been through so much as a team. But I think at the same time it's helped us to be become so much closer. We've had to fight through those hard times together and really struggle through the ups and downs with each other and try to stay as close as possible. And I think a lot of that showed this World Cup, the wins that we had, I think we played holistically as a team. Everyone falls and I think when you look at the characteristics of this team, you kind of think of people who play with their hearts on their sleeves. We come into every game with so much emotion and so much passion, trying to represent the West Indies and the Caribbean and we plan to continuously do that. All the time. Try to play with as much faith as we possibly can. I think looking at the group, everyone can sit and say that we are by no means the absolutely most - or best cricketers in the world, compared to some of the others but at the same time we play with so much fight and so much spirit that we can compete with the best in the world which is brilliant to be a part of.