GROS ISLET, St Lu­cia – New­ly ap­point­ed head coach Robert Samuels has warned West In­dies Women against tak­ing Ire­land Women light­ly, in the six-match white-ball se­ries bowl­ing off on Mon­day.

The hosts are ranked above their op­po­nents in both white-ball for­mats, ly­ing sixth in both One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als and Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­als while Ire­land are 11th in ODIs and 10th in T20Is.

“Ire­land [are] ranked be­low us and al­though they’re ranked be­low us, they’re a team that are very much im­proved [and] very much im­prov­ing,” Samuels said.

“We played against them in the World Cup and they gave us a run for our mon­ey, so the ladies un­der­stand that they can’t take any­thing for grant­ed.”

In the T20 World Cup in South Africa ear­li­er this year, West In­dies bare­ly got the bet­ter of Ire­land by six wick­ets in Cape Town, chas­ing down 138 with on­ly a ball to spare.

With­out an ODI se­ries win in near­ly two years, the Ire­land se­ries presents the ide­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for West In­dies to boost their con­fi­dence but Samuels said even more im­por­tant was cre­at­ing a last­ing win­ning for­mu­la.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly as a coach and play­ers you want to win but what I’m try­ing to do is build up a sys­tem of how to win,” said the for­mer West In­dies bats­man.

“So we’ve been work­ing on the field­ing, we’ve been work­ing on the bat­ting – the tech­ni­cal part.

“We’ve been work­ing on the men­tal as­pect, we’ve been work­ing on all these things just to get the com­plete play­er out on the park, fo­cussed and ready for the games at hand.”

Key to Samuels’s squad will be a young co­hort com­pris­ing the likes of 19-year-old ight-arm off-spin­ner Ash­mi­ni Mu­nis­ar and 18-year-old wick­et­keep­er-bat­ter Shunelle Sawh who have been named in the Hay­ley Matthews-led ODI side for the first time.

They will join fel­low teenagers Zai­da James and Djen­a­ba Joseph, bring­ing a youth­ful el­e­ment to the squad.

“They are here, they are young, they went to the World Cup, they are learn­ing their craft, hon­ing their craft,” said Sanuels.

“They’re still a lit­tle way off but I think the pro­gramme is head­ed in the right di­rec­tion where you have young play­ers com­ing through and young play­ers in the set­up, so they can learn from the old­er play­ers, and bring to the ta­ble what they have as well as the ex­pe­ri­ence they gath­er.

“I am hap­py they’re here and I’m sure they will fea­ture in match­es mov­ing for­ward.”

The first ODI bowls off at the Dar­ren Sam­my Crick­et Ground.

SQUADS

WEST IN­DIES WOMEN – Hay­ley Matthews (cap­tain), She­maine Camp­belle (vice-cap­tain), Aaliyah Al­leyne, Shamil­ia Con­nell, Chinelle Hen­ry, Afy Fletch­er, Cher­ry Ann Fras­er, Shabi­ka Gajn­abi, Zai­da James, Djen­a­ba Joseph, Qiana Joseph, Ash­mi­ni Mu­nis­ar, Kar­ish­ma Ramharack, Shunelle Sawh, Stafanie Tay­lor, Rasha­da Williams

IRE­LAND WOMEN – Lau­ra De­lany (cap­tain), Ava Can­ning, Georgina Dempsey, Amy Hunter, Ar­lene Kel­ly, Ga­by Lewis, Louise Lit­tle, So­phie MacMa­hon, Aimee Maguire, Cara Mur­ray, Leah Paul, Or­la Pren­der­gast, Eimear Richard­son, Re­bec­ca Stokell, Mary Wal­dron.

(CMC)

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