WELLINGTON, New Zealand (CMC) — Hayley Matthews believes the difficulties of the last several months resulted in a united West Indies Women’s squad, and led to their relative success at the ongoing ICC Women’s World Cup.

The Caribbean side were given little chance of getting out of the group stage but did so, finishing fourth to reach the semi-finals where they suffered a 157-run thrashing at the hands of unbeaten favourites Australia.

“Looking back at our journey, it definitely wasn’t an easy road over the last year,” said the stylish right-hander.

“[We had a] good series against Pakistan [last November] then went on to South Africa [earlier this year] and probably didn’t have the best one.

“But just to get to this World Cup alone, we had to go through the World Cup qualifiers. Just as that started there was the problem with COVID. And I think everyone had to try and get out of Zimbabwe as quickly as possible, having to endure that.

“And then having to spend 14 days in quarantine as a team [in Oman] before getting back home just maybe a couple of days before Christmas.”

She added: “So look, over the last eight months we’ve been through so much as a team. But I think at the same time it’s helped us to become so much closer.

“We’ve had to fight through those hard times together and really struggle through the ups and downs with each other and try to stay as close as possible.

“And I think a lot of that showed this World Cup, the wins that we had, I think we played holistically as a team.”

West Indies started the tournament on a high, stunning hosts New Zealand by three runs in Mount Maunganui before following up with an equally dramatic seven-run victory over reigning World champions England in Dunedin.

They lost two on the trot to India and Australia before carving out yet another tense win over Bangladesh but an upset at the hands of Pakistan left them facing a must-win situation against South Africa in order to reach the semi-finals.

Rain saw a share of the points and India’s subsequent defeat to South Africa in their final group game saw West Indies squeeze into the final four.

“Everyone falls and I think when you look at the characteristics of this team, you kind of think of people who play with their hearts on their sleeves,” the 23-year-old explained.

“We come into every game with so much emotion and so much passion, trying to represent the West Indies and the Caribbean and we plan to continuously do that all the time — try to play with as much faith as we possibly can.

“I think looking at the group, everyone can sit and say that we are by no means the absolutely most or best cricketers in the world, compared to some of the others but at the same time we play with so much fight and so much spirit that we can compete with the best in the world which is brilliant to be a part of.”

Matthews finished as her side’s leading run-scorer with 260 runs at an average of 37, and was the only member of the batting group to pass 200 runs and score a century.

She was also her side’s leading bowler, taking 10 wickets with her off-spin at an economy rate of just over four runs per over.

“I think coming into the tournament, I felt like I was in a pretty good space as an all-rounder and I was pretty happy to get off to a good start in that first match against New Zealand, getting the 100,” Matthews said.

“And picking up a couple of wickets as well, I think probably if I was to sit back and analyze my entire tournament, with the start I had, I probably would have wanted to score a bit more runs.

“But at the same time, I probably was able to exceed a couple of expectations with the ball too so I think overall, I’m just pretty grateful that I was able to have a good tournament [while] at the same time, yet still hungry to improve and want to do even better and continuously learning even more.