Injuries to Zaida James and Stafanie Taylor make bad day worse for West Indies

West Indies are waiting on injury updates for a couple of key players ahead of their next women’s T20 World Cup match, against Scotland on Sunday, where they will try to put their campaign back on track.

A ten-wicket defeat at the hands of South Africa in Dubai on Friday was soured further when opening bowler Zaida James suffered a blow to the jaw attempting a return catch off Laura Wolvaardt, the ball deflecting off her hand and on to her face. It was the first ball of the second over as South Africa began their pursuit of 119, which they achieved with 13 balls to spare. James left the field but was later seen sitting on the sidelines with a plaster on her chin. After the game, she went to a clinic to have her injury assessed.

Stafanie Taylor also looked in some discomfort during a gutsy innings of 44 not out from 41 balls. It emerged that she had been troubled by soreness in her knee. She was due to undergo a medical evaluation before training on Saturday morning.

“Zaida for sure, I know, it was pretty much just a knock on her face,” Hayley Matthews, West Indies’ captain, said immediately after the match. “I think the seam might have hit her on her face so she was in a bit of discomfort and [had] a bit of swelling around her jaw. But she’s a tough girl, so hopefully that’s just one of those knocks that you get on the field and she hopefully will be able to be back up for the next match.”

Several other players also looked like they were struggling in the intense heat of Dubai, were temperatures soared to 38° Celsius.

“It is pretty hot here,” Matthews agreed. “I have to say probably the hottest place I’ve ever played cricket, or have ever been on the whole, and I mean, that’s someone coming from the West Indies. Definitely some difficult conditions but we’ve been here for about two weeks now, thankfully, so we’ve been able to acclimatise as much as we possibly can with conditions like this. Thankfully we’ve got the rest of our games as night ones so I hope not as much sun.”

Speaking about the pitch, where West Indies struggled pretty much all the way through their innings, Matthews said, “We came down here probably expecting some pretty good wickets. We camped here quite a bit before we went to Pakistan in April and we tend to spend a bit of time down here in training, so we knew what the ICC Academy grounds are like and those were pretty decent wickets early on so that’s what we’re expecting.

“It wasn’t a bad wicket today, I think South Africa showd that you can really bat on a wicket like that, even us in parts. Stafanie Taylor was able to really take charge of the game as well throughout the middle, so I don’t think the conditions surprised us too much, we probably just didn’t adapt to them as well.”

With Matthews and Deandra Dottin both falling cheaply, for 10 and 13 respectively to Marizanne Kapp inside the first seven overs, Taylor proved crucial in West Indies putting up some fight in the face of Nonkululeko Mlaba’s career-best 4 for 29.

“She’s a huge part of us and she has been to West Indies cricket from 2008,” Matthews said of Taylor. “Her importance within the team has never gone down, it’s probably only gone up more and more as the years have gone on so it was great to see her out in the middle today.

“I think she still has a lot of doubters over the last few years so I think it was great that she could go out there and stand up and put her hand up when we were where in trouble. Once again the conditions, it’s obviously pretty hot, so it was hard to watch her stand up out there and fight but still good to see at the same time that she showed a lot of character with it.”