West Indies captain Hayley Matthews has been named Wisden’s leading Twenty20 Cricketer for 2023, as she topped all and sundry, including her male counterparts.
Alan Gardner looks at the remarkable performances of this outstanding player – a T20 World Cup champion.
We’ve all heard the one about the globe-trotting, six-hitting West Indies all-rounder bestriding the T20 stage. But this tale comes with a twist: a first female winner in this award’s seven-year history. Hayley Matthews has long been a star of the game – aged 18, she inspired West Indies to victory in the 2016 World T20 final – but in 2023 she produced an unprecedented red-hot run of form. Between February and her final game of the year in October, on three different continents, she won eight consecutive T20I match awards. The previous best was four in a row. During that sequence, she averaged 88 with the bat, at a strike-rate of 144, and 12 with the ball.
The pièce de résistance came at North Sydney Oval, game seven in the Matthews Supremacy. Set 213, West Indies were powered to a record chase in women’s T20Is by her buccaneering 132 from 64 balls, including 110 in boundaries. Her score, a West Indies record, was the first century in the second innings of a women’s T20I; and it came after she had been the pick of the bowlers, with 3-36 for her off-breaks. That the side on the receiving end were the world champions, playing in their own backyard, added only lustre.
If 2023 was a banner year for the women’s game, with the inauguration of the Women’s Premier League in India, then Matthews rode the crest of the wave. She was a WPL title-winner with Mumbai Indians, the fifth-leading run-scorer in the competition, and captained Barbados Royals to victory in the Caribbean Premier League, scoring 82 from 59 and taking 2-38 in the final. She was also a high-profile pick in The Hundred and the Big Bash.
Her feats could only sporadically lift West Indies, whom she had captained for the first time in 2022, though she credited the job for helping her, “take responsibility for my game”.
The first in her streak of match awards came against Ireland at Cape Town during the T20 World Cup, where West Indies ended a run of 15 defeats. She followed that with another all-round display, against Pakistan, though two group wins could not put her side in the semifinals. Ireland were again on the receiving end in July, as West Indies won 3–0 in St Lucia, before their tour of Australia confirmed her status as the ICC’s number one all-rounder. In five days, she smashed 99 not out, 132 and 79 – a total of 310 off 178 balls, with 43 fours and 13 sixes – and took five wickets.
Her overall T20I record for the year read 700 runs from 14 matches at 63 (strike-rate 132) and 19 wickets at 16 (economy 6.84). Across men’s and women’s T20 – domestic and international – her tally of 1,551 runs was topped only by Jos Buttler. Unlike Matthews, though, he was not the leading wicket-taker in the format. The Caribbean had produced another game-changer.
Article provided by the Editor of Wisden
ECB chief insists no decision made on Mott future
England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Richard Gould has denied reports a decision has already been made on Matthew Mott's future as white-ball coach.
Mott's future has been called into question in the aftermath of England's failure to defend their T20 World Cup crown in the United States and West Indies, losing to India in the semi-finals.
Mott also oversaw England's calamitous 50-over World Cup campaign last year, as they lost six of their nine matches in India and crashed out in the group stage.
Reports earlier this week suggested the decision had already been made to dispense with Mott's services, with Eoin Morgan a contender to succeed him, though the former limited-overs captain has since said he has no interest in the role.
Asked by BBC Test Match Special if Mott's future had already been decided, Gould said: "That's not true. That's certainly not true.
"Matthew Mott is a really good guy and coach. He's got a great track record and it is the same with [captain] Jos [Buttler].
"We are always assessing options - that is what happens in high-performance sport, you are always assessing your options.
"You never want to be drawn into being given the dreaded vote of confidence or anything like that. Competitive sport always brings scrutiny and decisions.
"We'll constantly want to assess our options but we'll always want to do the right thing by the sport, the team and individuals."
West Indies grab three late wickets on day one as third Test against England in the balance
England lost three wickets in a dramatic end to day one of the third Test against West Indies, leaving them in a precarious position after restricting the tourists for 282.
Gus Atkinson finished with figures of 4-67, while Chris Woakes took 3-69 for England, as only a fine sixth-wicket stand from Jason Holder and Joshua Da Silva saved West Indies from being bowled out for a much lower total.
But England, chasing a 3-0 series whitewash, let their dominant position slip when taking up the bat for the final 35 minutes, Zak Crawley (18), Ben Duckett (3) and Mark Wood (0) being dispatched as bowler Jayden Seales dropped them to 38-3.
Windies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite won the toss and chose to bat, leading his side to a solid start before a spell of three wickets in five overs before lunch put England on top.
Atkinson accounted for Mikyle Louis (26) and Alick Athanaze (2) on either side of Wood sending stumps flying with a full delivery to dismiss Kirk McKenize for 12.
Brathwaite's knock of 61 was brought to a halt shortly after the action resumed, the captain gloving Wood's leg-side ball to Jamie Smith as the tourists slid from 76-0 to 115-5 in 45 balls.
Holder (59) and Da Silva (49) then shared 108 to drag the Windies towards a respectable total, but things looked bleak for them when the latter feathered Woakes' ball through to Smith.
Having gone 30 overs without a wicket, England needed just 14 more to polish off the tail, the highlight being a terrific diving catch from Joe Root to send Gudakesh Motie (8) packing.
England were given just over half an hour with the bat to cap Friday's action, but any hopes of a serene finish were soon dashed.
Holder made two terrific catches off Seales' bowling, the first from Crawley's thick outside edge and the second to dismiss Wood for a duck, either side of Alzarri Joseph's cracking delivery accounting for Duckett.
That spell ensured what had been a good day for the hosts ended on a sour note, with the Windies sure to target quick wickets when the action resumes on Saturday.
Data Debrief: Atkinson and Seales dominate
This series began with all the focus on James Anderson as England's greatest-ever bowler bowed out at Lord's, but Atkinson has taken centre-stage since making his Test debut in the opening match and now has 20 wickets through five innings.
That is eight more than West Indies' Jayden Seales, the next-most prolific bowler in this series, has managed.
Seales was determined to have an impact on day one, though, and his two wickets at the death have set the stage for a far more competitive match than those England won at Lord's and Trent Bridge.
Bairstow set sights on swift England Test return
Jonny Bairstow bit back when asked if he was targeting an England return, insisting it is "all I want to do."
Bairstow was dropped from England's Test team for the ongoing series against West Indies.
The 34-year-old was part of England's T20 World Cup squad, and played in all five Tests of the tour of India earlier this year.
Bairstow has made 100 Test appearances, and when asked what his immediate target was, the wicketkeeper-batsman told former England captain and now-BBC Sport pundit Michael Vaughan: "All I want to do is play for England. That's end of.
"You don't need to ask me that do you? I think you know me well enough and I think you've known me for long enough to know that."
Bairstow did, however, enjoy a break away from the game, having had four weeks off before he joined the Welsh Fire for the Hundred.
He said: "At the same time it's been a great period of time.
"I had the best part of seven months away from home. Since January, I had five nights at home in my own bed since, until three weeks ago.
"That's the thing you have to sacrifice, time at home but at the same time, when you are away for that period of time, it takes its toll."
England are 2-0 up against the Windies in their three-match series, with the final Test starting at Edgbaston on Friday.
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