LA­HORE, Pak­istan– It’s all sys­tems go for the re­gion­al women as the West In­dies gear up for a high-stakes show­down against Scot­land in Pak­istan on Wednes­day morn­ing at 12.30 am (T&T time) as they be­gin their quest to se­cure a spot in the ICC Women’s Crick­et World Cup for a sixth con­sec­u­tive edi­tion.

Led by cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews, the Windies will look to car­ry for­ward their strong lega­cy, hav­ing reached the se­mi-fi­nals in the last tour­na­ment held in New Zealand.

With a his­to­ry of suc­cess in the qual­i­fiers, hav­ing ad­vanced to the main event in both 2003 and 2011, the West In­dies side en­ters the com­pe­ti­tion brim­ming with con­fi­dence.

De­spite the ab­sence of star all-rounder De­an­dra Dot­tin due to in­jury, the squad boasts plen­ty of fire­pow­er, re­in­forced by their re­cent se­mi-fi­nal run in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

Matthews re­mains the linch­pin of the team, sup­port­ed by the re­turn­ing vet­er­an Stafanie Tay­lor and the dy­nam­ic all-rounder Chinelle Hen­ry, who missed the Bangladesh se­ries.

The spin duo of Afy Fletch­er and Kar­ish­ma Ramharack will al­so play piv­otal roles in sti­fling op­po­nents on teh slow turn­ing Pak­istani wick­ets. For skip­per Matthews, the key is to ex­e­cute the plans that the team has for­mu­lat­ed.

“We’ve pre­pared well for this mo­ment, and I can tell you the team en­vi­ron­ment feels like a fam­i­ly, and we’re en­joy­ing our crick­et. We trust our skills and each oth­er, and our fo­cus is on play­ing our best game with­out dis­trac­tions. Win­ning this tour­na­ment is a ma­jor goal, and we’re con­fi­dent in our abil­i­ty to per­form at our high­est lev­el.”

Six teams, Bangladesh, Ire­land, Pak­istan, West In­dies, Scot­land and Thai­land, will bat­tle it out for the re­main­ing two spots at the ICC Women’s Crick­et World Cup 2025.

The sixth edi­tion of the qual­i­fi­er is host­ed by Pak­istan where match­es will be played at Gaddafi Sta­di­um and La­hore City Crick­et As­so­ci­a­tion.

CMC