Hayley Matthews will draw on one of the greatest innings of her career as she plots her way to an upset win over Australia in Tuesday’s T20 World Cup semi-final.
No, not the 66 she scored in the 2016 World Cup final in Kolkata, where she paved the way to the Windies’ first title.
Matthews is casting her mind to a far more recent example: the 132 from 64 balls she hammered at North Sydney Oval in October 2023 as the West Indies chased down Australia’s 6-212 to defeat Australia in a T20I for just the second time.
“That (2016 final) was 10 years ago and a much different group, and the game was a lot different at that time,” Matthews said at The Oval on Monday.
“We could probably look back at the one in 2023 when we were in Australia, (North Sydney Oval) feels like The Oval, the conditions might be pretty similar.
“The par score we feel is certainly going to be a lot higher than it was so far in the competition.
“For us there’s nothing to lose and coming up against a team like Australia who we know have a bunch of great players and superstars. We’re going to have to have somebody stand out and do something special, but also have a lot of different people from the team contribute.
“But I think when you look in our dressing room, we have a lot of match winners.”
Where Australia steamrolled their way through the group stage winning all five matches to qualify for the knockouts, West Indies scraped into the semi-finals after losing their final two matches, which included a shock six-wicket defeat to Ireland.
With no expectations and nothing to lose, the 28-year-old said her team would use that freedom to their advantage.
“We certainly feel like we’re coming up against the odds, we have nothing to lose, and that puts us in a position where we can be quite fearless going out there,” Matthews said.
“As a team we’re really proud of the way we’ve played so far, but we still know that we haven’t been at our best, which gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we can still get a lot better.
“A bit more of the pressure is on a team like Australia, who are going to be expected to beat us, and if they don’t, it’ll probably be a massive disappointment for them.
“So even though we have a lot of care and a lot of passion and we want to win, we’re certainly not expected to by the masses.
“But at the same time, I feel like we show up almost every single time we come to a World Cup and I don’t know what it is within the group, if it’s the passion or the drive, but I certainly feel like there is a sense of loving to prove people wrong.”
The West Indies sit seventh in the T20I rankings and were swept in back-to-back in home T20 series earlier this year against Sri Lanka and Australia.
But the Caribbean side has a knack for showing up at major tournaments, having also made the semi-finals of the 2024 T20 World Cup and 2022 ODI World Cup.
With big-game players including Matthews, Deandra Dottin and Stafanie Taylor in their ranks, Australia will not take their rivals lightly.
Matthews said her team had learned important lessons from the three T20Is against Australia in St Vincent and the Grenadines in March.
“You can’t take your foot off the gas at any point in time, especially when you’re bowling,” Matthews said.
“They seem to come hard from ball one and have a mantra where they just want to keep going.
“I certainly feel as though that keeps you in play a lot when it comes to having the opportunity to possibly take wickets, but you’re going to have to hold on to your chances for sure and understand that at some point in the game a partnership likely will build.
“We’re going to need big performances from big players; we’re certainly going to need a standout individual performance, but I think to beat a team like Australia, you still need more than one player.”
Australia meanwhile are looking to advance to the final having stumbled in the semi-finals of the two most recent senior women’s ICC World Cups.
Their ability to seize the key moments under pressure was identified as a contributing factor to both defeats and has been a major area of focus for Australia in the lead-up to the tournament.
“We’ve done a lot of work off the field as a whole unit, and there’s been a lot of buy-in, so the pressure side of things, we know that every single team is going to face pressure, it’s just who can handle it the best,” Australia allrounder Ashleigh Gardner said on Sunday.
“For us, we know that we’ve got so many match winners within our side, we’ve got so much depth, and there’s so much belief within our team that when we’re playing our best cricket, we can win every game.
“So it’s just being able to believe that even when things get hard, it’s just being able to revert back to that (belief).”
ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026
Australia squad: Sophie Molineux (c), Ashleigh Gardner (vc), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Nicola Carey, Kim Garth, Lucy Hamilton, Grace Harris, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham. Travelling reserve: Tahlia Wilson
Australia’s Group 1 fixtures
June 13: beat South Africa by 65 runs
June 17: beat Bangladesh by nine wickets
June 20: beat Netherlands by 98 runs
June 24: beat Pakistan by 113 runs
June 28: beat India by six wickets
Semi-final 1: Australia v West Indies, The Oval, London, June 30, 11:30pm AEST
Semi-final 2: England v South Africa, The Oval, London, July 2 (3:30am July 3 AEST)
Final: Lord’s, London, July 5 (12:30am July 6 AEST)
Click here for the full tournament schedule
All matches will be broadcast on Amazon’s Prime Video
