Updated On: 18 October, 2024 06:58 AM IST | Sharjah | Santosh Suri
The White Ferns have been in the finals of the first two editions, but on both occasions finished second best

WI skipper Hayley Matthews
From no-hopers to strong challengers; that has been the West Indies journey so far in the Women’s T20 World Cup. When they had lost their opening match to South Africa by 10 wickets, nobody gave them an iota of a chance that they would upset a top-notch team like England and storm into the knockout stage. They now run into the high-flying New Zealand in the second semi-final to be played here on Friday night. It is another big challenge they will have to overcome if they hope to repeat the feat of 2016, when they had won their only T20 World Cup defeating Australia in the final at Kolkata.
West Indies skipper Hayley Matthews is upbeat about her team’s chances. She said that she was extremely proud of the Caribbean side’s progress in the tournament since their embarrassing opening round loss to South Africa. “I think a lot of people wrote us off coming into this tournament and the way we’ve been able to go about our cricket, especially after the start we had against South Africa, we’ve just bounced back against Scotland, against Bangladesh, and I think we hadn’t beaten England in about six years,” Matthews said.