Hayley Matthews - A Smart Buy for Mumbai Indians
Matthews scored an unbeaten 77 [WPLT20.COM]
West Indies Women’s captain Hayley Matthews and all-rounder Deandra Dottin were the only two players from the Caribbean sold who fetched contracts at the the inaugural Women’s Premier League player auction.
Matthews, who recently led the Windies Women at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa, was picked up by Mumbai Indians for INR 40 lakh. She was named the side's captain in June 2022, taking over from Stafanie Taylor.
The Mumbai Indians have made an excellent investment in Taylor, who has shown in the first two matches itself that she will be the team's trump card. Matthews finished with figures of 3/28 against Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Brabourne Stadium, accounting for the wickets of Smriti Mandhana, Heather Knight and Richa Ghosh.
With the bat, she produced an unbeaten 77, laced with 13 fours and a six. Overall in two games, she has already scored more than a 100 runs.
The all-rounder not just brings with her the experience of playing 82 T20 internationals, from which she has 78 wickets and a batting strike rate of around 105, but she has also played in tournaments like Kia Super League and Big Bash League. In 67 WBBL innings, she has 1118 runs and 50 wickets.
"From when I was pretty young, I followed and supported my dad’s favourite sports teams. He was an MI fan from the very first season and a huge Sachin Tendulkar fan. When I was bought in the auction, somebody brought back all my tweets from 2013 around ‘Come on MI’ or something like that. It was pretty funny to see that," the 24-year-old said at the post match conference.
MI will be next in action against Delhi Capitals on Thursday, and Matthews will be looking to continue her exploits.
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