ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year, Stafanie Taylor is confident about
her West Indies team's chances in the upcoming ICC Women's World Cup
Qualifier to be staged in Bangladesh from 14-26 November in Dhaka.
Taylor believes the preparation of the side has been 'perfect' and it
will be confident going into the competition.West Indies plays its first game in the tournament against Ireland on 14
November. "We've been preparing well doing both fitness and psychology
training and I feel we have got a good grounding ahead of Dhaka. The
girls are looking well and our fitness has definitely improved which was
key goal for us ahead of this tour. We need to make sure we are fully
prepared for this event because we all want to qualify for the ICC
Women's World Cup. The camp we've been participating in for the last
week and a half has definitely been a great confident booster," said
Taylor.West Indies is in Group B alongside Pakistan, Ireland, Japan and host
Bangladesh in the 10-team event. Taylor believes the side can draw from
the knowledge of having played Ireland and Pakistan previously."We faced Ireland and Pakistan at the Women's Cricket Challenge and in
bilateral series, but Japan and Bangladesh are both unknown entities to
us and they are certainly not teams we can take for granted. I think we
can expect conditions to be similar to India, where we recently toured,
with the temperature, pitches and conditions to be the same. I've not
spoken to the men's side who have recently toured Bangladesh about
conditions, but I'm sure some of my teammates have spoken to their
friends in the men's side for tips. I'm also confident that our coach,
Sherwin Campbell will prepare us fully," informed Taylor.Even before the side begins its battle for a spot in the coveted ICC
Women's World Cup in 2013, the West Indies, the team has suffered a
major casualty. Key player Tremayne Smart has been ruled out through
injury and her place has gone to Surbrina Munroe"Losing someone like Tremayne was a major blow for us as she is an
important bowler for us. She gets wickets and keeps the runs to a few
against any opposition top order. However, Surbrina is experienced even
though she hasn't played and trained with us as much and I'm confident
she will meet our expectations and perhaps beat them by going out and
doing her best for the West Indies," said Taylor.The year of 2011 has been memorable so far for Taylor culminating in her
being named as the ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year at the annual LG
ICC Awards, in association with FICA, in London.Taylor said"For me it is a major confidence booster to be playing with
the knowledge that I was voted the best women's cricketer this year. It
makes me want to play even better and to show my worth by making even
more runs so that I can be in the running for next year's award."By scoring 600 odd runs last year, including two 80s in India which
should have been centuries, showed me that the more work I do the better
I become. The more fitness work I put in the better my game becomes and
the greater chance I will have to win the award again."I won't forget the day I found out I had won the award, I just landed
back in Jamaica after the recent series in Guyana and my uncle collected
me. We had the radio on as we were driving home and it was announced on
the news, I just couldn't believe it We were both so happy. It's a
good job he is a safe driver!" recalled Taylor.The ICC award was a reward for Taylor and vindicates her decision to
choose cricket over other passion, football. "I think if I hadn't
played cricket for a living I would have played football. I started
playing cricket when I was eight-years-old and played my first game for
Jamaica at 10, and I just loved it. That being said, I've got five
brothers and four sisters and I used to play football all the time with
them, so if I hadn't discovered cricket it would be soccer for sure,"
concluded Taylor
