BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) — As the higher ranked One-Day International (ODI) side, West Indies Women’s captain Hayley Matthews wants them to dominate Bangladesh Women in the ongoing series.

The sixth-ranked Windies started with a commanding showing at Warner Park on their way to inflicting a ruthless nine-wicket victory over the eighth ranked visitors in the opening match of the three-match series on Sunday.

Speaking with reporters after the match, Matthews, who was named Player-of-the-Match after taking two wickets and scoring an unbeaten century in the win, said she was pleased with the team’s performance.

“[It is a] pretty good start to the year. Obviously coming out here and wanting to have a pretty dominating performance, so really happy with my own performance but at the same time even happier that I could contribute to the team’s success.

“Obviously coming into this series as the higher ranked team we do want to go out there and I guess stamp our authority, so it’s really good that we can get the win to go up in the series, but yes, two more crucial games to go that are going to be very important for us, “Matthews said.

“We’ve obviously got World Cup Qualifiers coming up, which is going to be super important, and this is the only ODI series that we do have before it, so this is a really good warm up and practice for us and really good preparation and once we can use it well, we’ll be in good stead for the Qualifiers.”

Matthews wrote her name into the history books with her outstanding batting performance.

The 163-run opening partnership she put on with Qiana Joseph was the third highest for West Indies in Women’s ODIs and her century off 92 balls was the second fastest by a West Indian, behind Deandra Dottin’s 71-ball hundred.

For Joseph, who made 70, it was her first ODI half century in her 15th match.

“Obviously a great start to the year, but I think kudos to Qiana as well, what a day to have her first ODI half-century.

“She’s been someone that’s been coming along so well for the last six months or so, so it was really nice to be sharing the crease with her and have another really big partnership together and hopefully it’s just the start of things this year,” Matthews said.

“I feel pretty cool. As a batter I don’t necessarily aim to go out there and get those accolades.

“I just want to be pretty free at the crease and pretty fluent. Today I found the middle of the bat quite a few times and luckily, I was able to get a milestone like that,” she added.