West Indies allrounder and T20 World Cup winner Hayley Matthews has signed for Welsh Fire, while Colin de Grandhomme will continue his stint at the Ageas Bowl after replacing Andre Russell on Southern Brave’s list of overseas players.
Matthews, who was Player of the Match when West Indies won the 2016 World T20 in Kolkata, was unveiled by Welsh Fire after it was confirmed that Suné Luus has returned a positive Covid-19 test and is not able to travel.
Meanwhile, de Grandhomme, who made a career-best 174 not out for Hampshire on his LV= Insurance County Championship debut, and was part of the New Zealand squad that claimed the World Test Championship mace against India last month, takes over from Russell who has been ruled out due to international commitments.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — West Indies Under-19 Head Coach Floyd Reifer says the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic has forced his coaching staff to resort to “creative and innovative ways” to assess players ahead of next January's International Cricket Council (ICC) Under-19 Cricket World Cup set to be staged in the Caribbean.
The outbreak of the virus in the region last year March forced government authorities into widespread lockdowns to mitigate the spread, resulting in the cancellation of nearly all sporting activity throughout cricket-playing territories.
And, while a 44-member training squad has been chosen, Reifer said his staff was still in the hunt for additional players and would be using various methods in order to continue identifying and properly assessing the entire group.
“It is very challenging. Obviously, due to COVID, there was no regional Under-19 Tournament last year and there is none again this year,” Reifer told veteran cricket journalist Keith Holder for his Hitting Out column in Barbados Today online.
West Indies Women captain Stafanie Taylor has reclaimed the top batting and all-rounder’s spots in the latest International Cricket Council women player rankings announced by the governing body yesterday.
The 30-year-old jumped four spots to displace India stroke-maker Mithali Raj from the summit of the batting charts and rose two places in the all-rounders' charts to knock Australian Ellyse Perry off her perch.
Raj, South African Lizelle Lee, Australian Alyssa Healy and England’s Tammy Beaumont round out the top five of the batting while Aussie Megan Schutt, South African Marizanne Kapp, fellow national Shabnim Ismail and India’s Jhulan Goswami complete the top five in the bowling.
Mitchell Starc held his nerve at the death to guide Australia to their maiden win of the T20I Series by four runs after the West Indies almost blasted their way to victory from an improbable position on Thursday.
Chasing 189-6, the West Indies needed 57 from 24 balls with five wickets left after Mitch Marsh took two wickets in an over, before fireworks from Fabian Allen (29 from 14) and Andre Russell (22* from 13) turned the game on its head in St Lucia.
The pair combined for four sixes from five balls in the penultimate over from Riley Meredith, needing 11 off the final over but Starc sent down five dot balls to Russell in the last to earn Australia a win which makes the series 3-1.
Following discussions between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Cricket West Indies (CWI), the dates of this year’s tournament have been amended.
The Hero CPL will now start on 26 August and finish on 15 September.
This year’s tournament will be played in St Kitts & Nevis with all 33 matches taking place at Warner Park.
The fixtures for the 2021 tournament are as follows:
