The 24-year-old Barbadian was the best of the West Indies Women with 260 runs including a match-winning century of 119 against New Zealand. She also took 10 wickets with her off-spin and had her best figures of 4-15 against Bangladesh.
Her performances played a major role in helping the West Indies Women advance to the semi-finals for the first time since 2013. As such, Cricket West Indies (CWI) congratulated Matthews on making the Most Valuable Team of the tournament.
Anne Brown-John, Lead Selector for Women’s Cricket also praised the team for their showing at the tournament and the strides made to finish among the top four and climb up the ICC Women’s ODIs standings.
“I will like to congratulate the team on reaching the World Cup semi-final. The team went into the competition in the lower half of the standings and ended in the top four,” she said.
“For this, the players and staff must be complimented. The selectors put together what we considered to be the best 18 available players for the World Cup and we are confident that they did their best. Everyone would like to get to the final but it did not happen this time.
“Despite this, there were some really remarkable performances and Hayley Matthews and Deandra Dottin were beacons resulting in Hayley being named to the ICC team of the World Cup. This is well deserved since she was one of the outstanding players of the tournament both with the bat and the ball. For this, she must be commended.”
Matthews, meanwhile, said her success at the World Cup was due mainly to hard work on her part.
“I’ve put a lot of hard work leading up to the tournament and to be selected to the Best XI is a reward for that,” she said.
“I must admit that it’s bittersweet because we didn’t make it to the final but the fight we’ve shown throughout the tournament signifies the growth we’ve had as a team.
“Getting a century is always a momentous occasion but getting a World Cup hundred was, I think, just a bit more special for me and definitely up there in being quite memorable. The opportunity to contribute with the ball as well has been really pleasing, knowing that if it doesn’t go my way with the bat on that day, I can still contribute otherwise.”
Meg Lanning was named captain of the Most Valuable Team after guiding her side to the title and scoring 394 runs during the tournament.
Four Australians were selected to the team, including Player-of-the-Tournament Alyssa Healy. The wicket-keeper-batter made two centuries in the knockout stages, including 170 in the final against England.
Most Valuable Team: Laura Wolvaardt (South Africa), Alyssa Healy (Australia) – wicket-keeper, Meg Lanning (Australia) – captain, Rachael Haynes (Australia), Nat Sciver (England), Beth Mooney (Australia), Hayley Matthews (West Indies), Marizanne Kapp (South Africa), Sophie Ecclestone (England), Shabnim Ismail (South Africa), Salma Khatun (Bangladesh) and 12th-woman Charlie Dean (England).