Gardner: Australia must be wary of Matthews in T20 World Cup semi-final

Ashleigh Gardner says Australia must be cautious of a dangerous West Indies side containing Hayley Matthews and Deandra Dottin as they prepare for the first ICC Women's T20 World Cup semi-final at The Oval on Tuesday, live on Sky Sports.

Six-time champions Australia are the favourites to progress to Sunday's final after they topped Group 1, winning all five of their matches, while West Indies' route to the last four was a little less straightforward.

They nearly missed out on a berth in the semi-finals after suffering a shock six-wicket defeat to Ireland, which opened up a chance for New Zealand to qualify. Ultimately, West Indies were handed a lifeline by England's Danni Wyatt-Hodge, who produced an incredible batting performance in the final Group 2 match to knock the White Ferns out of the tournament and send Matthews' side through.

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Australia and West Indies are familiar opponents, with vice-captain Gardner's side having claimed T20I and ODI series sweeps against Matthews' team in March and April, before they faced off in a warm-up match leading into the tournament.

Gardner knows the destructive power Matthews and Dottin possess with the bat, even if both players have struggled to score runs so far during the tournament.

"West Indies are a completely different threat [to India]. They've got a lot of class and a lot of firepower within their team," Gardner said.

"They also have a lot of experience, obviously led brilliantly by Matthews, who is a player that can take away a game pretty quickly. But then you look at someone like Dottin, she's a threat in all three phases of the game.

"She's a fantastic player. I've had the privilege of playing with her, and seeing how she goes about her cricket, she's so fearless in the way that she approaches it, which sometimes can be quite scary because she can flip a switch pretty quickly."

Matthews produced a score of 48 off 37 deliveries to help her side defeat defending champions New Zealand by seven wickets in the opening game of the tournament.

It was her highest score so far at the World Cup, with the West Indies skipper following that with scores of 14, 17, 14 and 22 in her next four matches.

Dottin has also struggled with the bat. Her highest score during the tournament, 21, came in the defeat to Ireland, with Dottin having made 72 runs across five innings during the tournament.

Despite that, Matthews knows her side's big names need to stand up if they want to repeat their feats of 2016, when West Indies beat Australia in the final to be crowned T20 world champions.

"We're going to need big performances from big players. I think we're certainly going to need a standout individual performance," Matthews said.

"But I think to beat a team like Australia, you still need more than one player, and we're going to have to have our best players really stepping up to the plate.

"I feel like players like Aaliyah Alleyne, Jahzara Claxton, they've been great role players throughout the tournament. And I think with our stars alongside players like them really playing massive roles, we're going to have to put together an all-round game as a group.

"We haven't had our best match yet. We haven't had the likes of myself or Deandra Dottin in the runs really. And that leaves a lot of room for improvement for us as a team. So hopefully we can see some of us stepping up a bit more and taking it to the Aussies."

Matthews has a pretty prolific scoring record against Australia in the T20I format. She has scored the most runs (507) against Australia of any opposition player in the T20I format, notably giving Australia nightmares in Sydney in 2023, when she struck her highest individual T20 score of 132 runs off 64 deliveries, helping her side overcome a 213-run chase.

Ellyse Perry also featured in the 2016 World Cup final against West Indies, during which Matthews produced a player-of-the-match performance, striking 66 runs of 45 balls, while Dottin also notably took figures of 2-33.

The Australian all-rounder is eager to focus on what lies ahead, instead of revisiting the heartache of 2016.

"We don't want that kind of bad juju," Perry said. "I mean, what's that, 10 years ago? The game has changed so much in that period of time. And I just think you cannot even pull things from the last match because it's crazy how sport works.

"We've played each other quite a lot in the last couple of months. We actually had a tour to West Indies earlier this year. We've played each other in a warm-up match, so we're sort of quite familiar with each other at the moment.

"They've got some tremendously talented and dangerous players with a lot of experience. So it will be a great challenge for us. It's a quick turnaround too at a different venue, so I think we're really looking forward to it."

Watch Australia take on West Indies live on Sky Sports and FREE via the Sky Sports app from 2pm on Tuesday.

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