Before the Women's World T20 final, Dwayne Bravo had a message for Stafanie Taylor. He complained that Taylor's West Indies Women side were not doing the "champion dance" enough. She vowed to put that right.
Jamaica schools cricket is a notoriously macho environment. Fast bowling and fast pitches dominate. The best girl cricketers are often intimidated to join in. "Females are reluctant to get into cricket," says Leon Campbell, a long-time youth coach in Jamaica.
Taylor was different. When Campbell spotted her as a nine-year-old, initially it was the easy athleticism of her fielding that attracted him. "I realised that she could catch. I drafted her in the team based on that."
She soon showed that she could do much else besides. In her early years Taylor considered herself a fast bowler, but it was her calmness and technique with the bat, allied to her quick learning and an insatiable appetite for self-improvement, that impressed Campbell. "From day one I was telling her, 'You are going to be the No. 1 female cricketer in the world,'" he recalls.
Campbell emphasised one thing. "I advised her, 'Do not get out.' In any team if you get out, they will want to blame you." Especially a player who was the only girl in the side. Out of this foundation, Campbell consciously tried to model Taylor upon former West Indies batsman Lawrence Rowe, between whom and Taylor he detects some resemblance. Straight hitting became a particular forte: "I told her that you can't put a fielder behind the bowler."
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