<\/p>\n
The West Indies captain, Hayley Matthews, criticised the \u201cunfair\u201d distribution of funding in global cricket after her team were resoundingly beaten by Australia in the T20 World Cup semi-finals.<\/p>\n
Australia chased down their 126-run target with eight wickets and seven overs to spare, after a 63-run partnership off 36 balls between Beth Mooney and Ash Gardner allowed Australia to win at a canter. The six-time champions will face the winner of Thursday\u2019s semi-final between England and South Africa in Sunday\u2019s final. After another convincing performance, they will surely be huge favourites to take home a seventh title. West Indies, by contrast, have failed to win a single tournament in the past decade.<\/p>\n Matthews said: \u201cThe reason we were so successful back in 2012 to 2016 is because women\u2019s cricket was based off pure talent at that time. The minute that investment comes into the picture, we\u2019ve seen the gap widen a lot.<\/p>\n \u201cOur girls have to fight a lot to even be competing and to be playing at this level. It makes it really hard for us to compete when we don\u2019t have pathway programmes in place and then teams like Australia are pushing out Phoebe Litchfields from 15 years old every single year. I feel like it\u2019s a bit unfair sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n West Indies\u2019 entire women\u2019s regional season for 2025-26 consisted of 18 T20s and nine one-day games played over two weeks in January \u2013 incomparable to the riches of the Women\u2019s National Cricket<\/a> League and Women\u2019s Big Bash League in Australia. But vast differences in broadcast revenue mean it is difficult for the West Indies Cricket Board to replicate the investment by Cricket Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cYou need a lot of money to do a lot of these things,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cWithin the West Indies, we don\u2019t always have the funds required.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are competing against teams like Australia who, realistically based on systems and opportunities, we\u2019re not supposed to beat them, but we still come here and show up and we put out some magical performances sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n Sadly, Tuesday\u2019s performance at the Oval was short on magic, after a collapse of four wickets for 12 runs in 17 balls put paid to any hope of West Indies setting a competitive total, despite an aggressive partnership of 42 off 27 balls between Deandra Dottin and Jannillea Glasgow at the end.<\/p>\n For Australia, the only alarm came when Ellyse Perry retired hurt in the seventh over of the chase with a quad concern. Mooney, though, said the move had been merely precautionary and that Australia\u2019s leading tournament run-scorer would be fit for the final.<\/p>\n The day had begun in dramatic fashion when Dottin collapsed midway through the Australian anthem with what Matthews described as a \u201cmedical emergency\u201d and had to be carried off the pitch by two of her teammates. She was listed to bat at No 5 but emerged from the dressing room only halfway through the innings when the scale of the collapse became apparent.<\/p>\n Finally, she entered the fray at No 8 in the 16th over. Four boundaries followed, with Glasgow providing impetus at the other end \u2013 but by then it was too late for Dottin to make enough of a difference.<\/p>\n
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