CRICKET WEST INDIES

West Indies allrounder Stafanie Taylor has made a big jump up the International Cricket Council’s One-Day Internationals Women’s Rankings for batters. The right-hander, who opens the batting and also bowls off-spin, moved from tenth spot to fourth spot following her outstanding performances in the ICC Women’s Challenge in Potchefstroom, South Africa.

Taylor, the most successful players in West Indies Women’s history, has also moved to third in the ODI Women’s Player Rankings for allrounders and into the top 20 of bowlers for the first time – in 16th position. These are all career-high rankings for the 19-year-old Jamaican.

Taylor was the leading allrounder in the tournament with 390 runs in five innings at an average of 97.50 per innings. She was the only century maker – a career-best 147 against the Netherlands – as well as three half-centuries. During the tournament she became the youngest women in the history of world cricket to reach 1000 international runs, and also the first West Indian women to reach the landmark. She also collected six wickets at an average of 14.83 during the event and won three Player-of-the-Match awards in the five matches.

“It feels great to be making such significant strides in the world rankings and I am pleased with my performances ... but there is still plenty of work to be done. I want to be the Number 1 and I want to stay there, so I will be looking for runs, and more runs in the upcoming matches,” she said on Wednesday.

“I set myself several targets before I came here to South Africa and I managed to achieve most of them. I just want to keep growing as a player. The coach has asked me to bat and bat and bat and I have been taking his advice.”

Taylor added: “My bowling has improved a lot and I really enjoy bowling. I prefer to use the ‘newish’ ball early in the innings as that works well with my kind of bowling. I not a big spinner of the ball, I prefer to get the ball to slide onto the batters.”

Also making strides up the ICC ODI batting rankings is Deandra Dottin, the powerful middle-order batter. She scored two half-centuries – both at better than a run-a-ball – and has cracked the top 20 for the first time. The 19-year-old from Barbados has claimed her career-best ranking to date of 15th.

During the tournament West Indies captain and wicket-keeper Merissa Aguilleira moved up the batting order and on three occasions surpassed her career-best score. Now she has move into 35th position on the ICC batting rankings.

Outside of the top 20 in bowling off-spinner Anisa Mohammed moved up eight places to 22nd. The Windies vice captain from Trinidad and Tobago took the second most wickets 11, at 12.10 each including her career-best 4-26.