DER­BY – West In­dies Women’s head coach, An­dre Co­ley, has hailed last week­end’s prac­tice match as key to the side’s prepa­ra­tions for next week’s five-match Twen­ty20 se­ries against hosts Eng­land.

The in­ter-squad match, one of two sched­uled be­fore the in­ter­na­tion­al se­ries gets un­der­way, saw Stafanie Tay­lor’s XI de­feat De­an­dra Dot­tin’s XI by eight runs.

“We’ve been here for two weeks do­ing a com­bi­na­tion of var­i­ous skills ses­sions in the nets, strength and con­di­tion­ing and game-plan­ning but [this] was our first time to get as close to a game sce­nario with this prac­tice match,” Co­ley said.

“We split the teams as even­ly as pos­si­ble and some very promis­ing per­for­mances came out of that. Both teams were able to bat the full 20-over in­nings … play­ers spent time at the crease build­ing part­ner­ships.

“So that was good to see and we are hap­py with how things went. Now it’s just about fine-tun­ing and build­ing mo­men­tum lead­ing in­to the se­ries next week.”

West In­dies cap­tain Tay­lor found form ahead of the se­ries with 71 off 52 de­liv­er­ies in­clud­ing nine fours as her side post­ed 131 for six off 20 overs.

Aaliyah Al­leyne cap­tured three for 35 while fel­low seam­er Shak­era Sel­man sup­port­ed with two for 15.

In re­ply, Dot­tin al­so fine-tuned for her up­com­ing in­ter­na­tion­al as­sign­ment with a breezy 41 off 43 balls but lacked sup­port and her side came up short of the tar­get.

Off-spin­ner Shene­ta Grim­mond (2-16) and fast bowler Shamil­ia Con­nell (2-23) fin­ished with two wick­ets apiece.

The sec­ond prac­tice match is card­ed for to­day.

West In­dies take on Eng­land in the first T20 In­ter­na­tion­al next Mon­day at the In­co­ra Coun­ty Ground.

The se­ries is be­ing played un­der strict health pro­to­cols and be­hind closed doors be­cause of the on­go­ing COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

CMC