Windies, England Women cricketers to take a knee in series

WEST Indies Women’s captain Stafanie Taylor is elated to have the support of the England Women for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement during the upcoming five-match Vitality T20 International series, bowling off on Monday.

The teams have decided that the Black Lives Matter movement will be recognised during the series.

On Saturday, speaking to journalists on Zoom, Taylor said she had a discussion with England Women’s captain Heather Knight and a decision has been made.

“Heather and I had a good discussion about it and they are very much in support of it. It is pretty much what we want to do and they are going to support what we decide.

“We are going to be honouring the Black Lives (Matter) movement. Every game we pretty much going to take a knee and we will be wearing the Black Lives Matter logo also on our jersey.”

During the West Indies-England men’s three-match Test series in England in July, the teams knelt and wore the BLM logo.

“It means a lot and to see them being a part of it, it means a lot to us,” Taylor said.

“A lot has been happening around the world and you pretty much want to be on the same page…it was really nice of her (Knight) to shoot a message to say, ‘Hey, Steph, we are very much in support of the Black Lives movement and we want to support you guys as best as we can, so let me know what it is that you want to do.’ So it brings a smile on all our faces.”

West Indies have been in England for the past three weeks and the Windies captain says they don’t feel like the away team.

“We’ve been here for a while and it feels like home to us…we got to utilise the facility and pretty much get use to it, so it does feel like home.”

Taylor was satisfied that the batters who are expected to feature during the series got among the runs in the warm-up matches.

“When you look at the scorecard you basically see that the batters that are getting runs are the (key) batters, which is actually good.

“That’s what we need. We need the batters to spend that time out in the middle, get yourself in even though we were playing against ourselves.”

The series ends on September 30.