Wins for the Windies and England would book their places in the semi-finals in Antigua and set-up a showdown on Sunday for the top spot in Group ‘A’. However, all four sides competing in Group ‘A’ on Friday can still technically make the semi-finals of the ICC Women’s World T20 if results go their way.
Sri Lanka must win their final match against hosts Windies to leave them on five points and their fate in the hands of other teams. South Africa will also have to win to keep their hopes alive against an England side who got the better of them over the summer in a T20I series.
Speaking ahead of the match England coach Mark Robinson said, “For the first time since we’ve been here we feel prepared after four days of training for this game.”
“The nature of T20 you try to get on with it at the beginning, there are some nerves like we saw the other night but like I said we had been sat around of 8 days so was difficult to settle - tomorrow we will need to be on top of that.”
“We know we can get anything with South Africa, they are a good team, a dangerous team and when they hit the straps they can take anyone down.”
“They have some real match winners, with the bat Lee, the captain and Kapp and with the ball their opening bowlers given the right conditions can be a real handful, so we need to make sure we read the game well and measure the conditions.”
South Africa wicket keeper Lizelle Lee is keen to put the defeat to the Windies behind them. “It was disappointing to say the least, but we need to forget about that now and we have two must win games against England and Bangladesh. The bowling unit has been doing very well it’s now time for the batting unit to play their part.”
“There have not been any big scores here in Saint Lucia and it’s not a wicket where you can just throw your hands around, we will need adapt. We were never out of the game last night but when we lose wickets in clusters it makes it very hard for us.”
“It is not going to be an easy game for us against England and we have given them a hard time over the last few months when we have competed. Tomorrow we will need to bring things together as a batting unit and make sure we bring the game over the line.”
Windies coach Henderson Springer says there is room for improvement with the bat. “I am very happy with the two wins and there has been a tremendous effort from the team in the field and with the ball but we need to start putting more runs on the board as these games are becoming more exciting because we are defending small totals and when we defend small totals we can’t afford to make mistakes.”
“This is a perfect group of players to compliment the bowling that we have. And at the top of our batting line-up we have Hayley and Deandre who can go for it a little bit more, but we need to get it right and hit our targets and at critical times when we should be pushing on we have found ourselves in a difficult position.”
“We feel confident but not complacent, we still are working hard and preparing as we would for any other game against Sri Lanka. We have great fans here and I want to thank them for their support and hope they come out again tomorrow. But we need to do more to give them something to shout about.”
(Report courtesy: ICC Media Zone)
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