Photo Credit: Cricket West Indies
“I’m not a stats person but when it came up on the big screen it was a really good feeling.”
This was Stafanie Taylor’s recount of the historical moment when she became the second cricketer male or female and first West Indian to reach 3000 T20 International runs.
Stafanie was even more elated to know she was the second person to the milestone and the person in ahead of her is also a woman saying,
“It shows the amount of work that we as female cricketers have been doing over the years and to see that a lot of people have highlighted what we have done, it’s a great feeling…”
The average cricket fan may not pay much attention to statistics but Stafanie actually has more T20 international runs than Virat Kohli and Chris Gayle, who have 2794 and 1627 respectively.
Stafanie credits having good people around her who critique her and help her to become better. A change in lifestyle has also led to an improvement in her performance. Switching to a pescatarian diet and implementing a diligent work ethic has led Stafanie to become fitter and faster.
Like Shakera Selman, Stafanie has an interest in coaching or broadcasting as a career after her playing days are finished, leaning towards coaching first before getting fully immersed into commentating.
Stafanie indicated she would love to see more young players coming through women’s cricket,
“I would love to see some young players coming through, integrating with the old folks… we definitely need a feeder system. That’s the one thing we lack… when you look around the world to places like Australia, India and England who have been doing it really good with young players coming through the system… and when they reach the international level it’s nothing new or foreign to them…”
Seven wickets away from 100 T20 International wickets, Stafanie will join her teammate Anisa Mohammed (first cricketer to take 100 T20I wickets) as the only West Indians to reach a century of T20I wickets. When she achieves this, coupled with crossing 3000 runs, she will be in a class of her own as the first cricketer to achieve this historic double.
Cricket West Indies (CWI) governs cricket across the West Indies, a confederation of Caribbean countries. Originally established as the West Indies Cricket Board of Control in the 1920s, it became the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) in 1996 and was rebranded as Cricket West Indies in May 2017 as part of a restructuring effort.
