DUBAI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – West In­dies Women’s cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews for­ti­fied her hold on be­ing the No 1 all-rounder in Women’s Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als.

The In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC), the sport’s glob­al or­gan­is­ing body, an­nounced that Matthews, the ICC Women’s T20I Play­er-of-the-Year for 2023, con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate the T20I play­er rank­ings fol­low­ing the week­ly up­date of per­for­mances.

The 26-year-old Bar­ba­di­an all-rounder was named Play­er-of-the-Se­ries af­ter her side won their five-match se­ries against hosts Pak­istan 4-1 for per­for­mances that have pro­pelled her in­to the top five in all three T20I rank­ings cat­e­gories.

Matthews moved up one place to third on the up­dat­ed T20I bat­ting rank­ings, gained one spot to be fifth on the lat­est bowler rank­ings, and main­tained her healthy lead at the top of the all-rounder cat­e­go­ry fol­low­ing a su­perb se­ries against Pak­istan that net­ted 205 runs and sev­en wick­ets.

She was dis­missed for a rare duck in the open­ing match of the se­ries against the Pak­ista­nis, but she bowled an eco­nom­ic spell of one for 14 in her al­lot­ted four overs.

Matthews made a brisk 58 and was the pick of the bowlers with three for 25 in the sec­ond match, and she fol­lowed up with 68 and two wick­ets in the third T20I.

She scored one and was wick­et-less in the fourth T20I, which was the on­ly match her side lost by eight wick­ets in a low-scor­ing af­fair, but she end­ed the se­ries strong­ly with an up-tem­po 78 and one wick­et in the fi­nal match.

The ICC an­nounced on Mon­day that Matthews was al­so be­ing con­sid­ered for its Play­er-of-the-Month award for April af­ter scor­ing 451 runs and tak­ing 12 wick­ets across the two white-ball for­mats of T20Is and One-day In­ter­na­tion­als.

The glob­al or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so dis­closed that West In­dies wick­et­keep­er-bats­man She­maine Camp­belle, Matthews’ deputy, had moved up 16 spots to 70th in the bat­ting rank­ings, and long-serv­ing leg-spin­ner Afy Fletch­er has risen 16 places to 25th in the bowl­ing rank­ings.

West In­dies Women are cur­rent­ly ranked sixth in the team rank­ings.

(CMC)