WELLINGTON, New Zealand (CMC) – As both West Indies and Australia head into their semi-final clash of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup missing key players, captain Stafanie Taylor says the Caribbean side will be focusing on sticking to their plan to get over the six-time champions.

West Indies Women are going into only their second semi-final in the history of the competition having been dealt a blow on Tuesday, when veteran spinner, Afy Fletcher, was ruled out of the match after testing positive for COVID-19.

Australia will also be without their star all-rounder Ellyse Perry, after she failed to recover from back spasms that kept her out of the final group game against Bangladesh.

However, speaking at a pre-match press conference on Monday before the announcement that Fletcher would also be out of the game at the Basin Reserve, Taylor indicated that Perry’s absence would not make the West Indies’ task any easier.

“We haven’t spoken about that and I don’t think it is something that we were going to talk about,” she said when asked what not having to face Perry could mean to the Caribbean side in the crucial semi-final match.

“I feel like Australia is a strong team and whether Ellyse Perry is in or she is out, they’re a strong team and we still have to go ahead with our plans and focus on what we need to do as a team and not too much on them.”

“This would be our second time being in a semi-final, and, yeah, we want to relish the moment and go out there and play hard cricket,” she added.

The captain said the players have been in the nets and getting used to conditions in New Zealand and that should assist in their game.

“Australia has been here probably more often than we have, but we just have to take it as it comes. We are prepared for tomorrow like a final and, yeah, hopefully we are the one who is on top,” Taylor said.

The West Indies had faced a 72-hour wait to confirm their place in the final semi-final spot, needing South Africa to defeat India in the final group game, which they did.

Reflecting on how the West Indies Women’s team has developed in the last two years, Taylor said the coaching staff had been instrumental.

“We’ve had some changes to our team. We have a new coaching staff. I believe that the work they have been doing with us has changed the way we go about our game. Some of our games have changed because when you have those coaches who give us some insight on how we are playing versus how we should play, I feel like that flipped the switch in us,” she said.

“We’ve come a long way. Probably it does not show so much with the scoresheet but I feel like we have come a long way. Looking back on the series that we’ve played – and, as I said, like the coaching staff would have been, those persons who contributed so much to us as players and to where we are at – I thought we had a really good start to the tournament, and I hope that that’s something that we can use to get us through in this backend,” the skipper added.

With the absence of Fletcher, a key part of the West Indies bowling attack, the ICC’s Event Technical Committee approved 22-year-old all-rounder Mandy Mangru, who travelled with the team as a reserve, as her replacement.

In stark contrast to the experienced Fletcher who has played 58 One-Day Internationals (ODIs) for the Caribbean side, Mangru has played just one ODI for the West Indies against South Africa in Johannesburg last month, in the lead-up to the World Cup.

She scored 15 runs batting at number six on that occasion and registered bowling figures of 0/15 from three overs with her handy off-spin.

Fletcher is currently in isolation and the ICC explained that once the spin bowler has recovered, she would be eligible to return to the squad in the position of the travelling reserve that took her spot as a COVID replacement.

The West Indies will play Australia at 11 am local time on Wednesday (Tuesday, 6:00 pm Eastern Caribbean Time/5:00 pm Jamaica Time)