West Indies are unbeaten at this T20 World Cup, with one foot in the knockouts, but their coach Shane Deitz considers them "nowhere near the semi-finals" and still in need of improvement. He has a point. West Indies lost five wickets and took 16.1 overs to chase 99 against Sri Lanka in Bristol, after only beating Scotland narrowly by seven runs in Leeds to suggest they can be shaky. But Deitz also should have reason to believe they can go far.
Apart from dealing defending champions New Zealand their first blow, West Indies have two of the tournament's top three wicket-takers and a batter in the top 10 on the highest strike-rate chart. The latter's name is not Deandra Dottin.
Instead, it's West Indies' former captain Stafanie Taylor, who missed their first match with a niggle, but has since produced two not-out knocks and showed a completely different side to her game. Batting at No. 7 against Scotland, smashed 47 off 19 balls to ensure West Indies topped 150, which was only just enough. Then, Taylor told Ian Bishop during the player of the match presentation that she had been working with Detiz "on my technique and how he actually wants me to access both sides of the wicket."
Taylor also revealed how she had been spending almost all her spare time in the nets and would then "send footage back to him [Deitz] and make sure that I'm doing the right thing, and he's quite happy with that," she said. "It's about giving myself more areas where I can play my shots."
In her second innings of the tournament, Taylor was back up to No. 4 and hit the fourth ball she faced for six as she stayed on her back foot and sent Kawya Kavindi over deep midwicket. She also brought out the sweep off Chamari Athapaththu and scored 20 runs on the leg side, an area of the ground she has worked towards being able to access. Knowing the effort Taylor has been putting in behind the scenes, Deitz is pleased to see it paying off.
"She's been on fire. She's worked really hard the last year, particularly at her T20 game and her strike rate," he said. "She was obviously really disappointed to miss that first game. And in Ireland before we came here, she was hitting the ball real good too. We definitely missed her that first game. Luckily, she came back and had two really important knocks for us. She has a great strike rate, really took the opposition down, and she looks a million dollars. It's great to have one of the all-time legends in form going into what's the business end of the tournament."
The numbers don't reveal that much about the difference Taylor has made to her approach recently. In 2026, Taylor has a strike-rate of 103.22, which is the first time since 2018 that her T20I strike rate is above 100. But, in 2024 and 2023, she had a strike rate above 96, so she has been trending upwards. What she's doing differently is that she is able to clear the boundary more easily, and has struck a six every 27 balls in 2026, up from a six every 36 balls in 2018. In the six years between 2019 and 2025, she hit just seven sixes, or one every 104 balls.
Power-hitting is a much talked about aspect of the women's game, and must be one of its fastest-growing features. For a player like Taylor, who turned 35 the day before the tournament started and has been playing international cricket for 16 years, to have opened up an entirely new side to her game tells a story of its own about how she has bought into the team's philosophy. "One thing has been our mantra throughout this whole World Cup: find a way. You've just got to find a way to win in any situation," Deitz said.
West Indies have had it hard for all three of their matches but pulled off a penultimate ball victory against New Zealand and a final over win against Scotland. Their victory over Sri Lanka was more straightforward. That they had different match-winners - Shemaine Campbelle against New Zealand, Taylor against Scotland and Hayley Matthews against Sri Lanka - speaks to shared responsibility and has helped their confidence.
"That self-belief is really good at the moment. And we have different people stepping up to win the games," Detiz said. "You always get a bit nervous obviously but the girls are really putting their hand up to win games for the team. We've got great depth. We need 15 players to contribute to win these sorts of tournaments and these games. And that's what we're doing."
West Indies have the opportunity to seal their spot in the semi-finals when they take on England this week, though that is not a must-win match. Their last group stage fixture is against Ireland in Bristol and they'll be wary of a team they lost to as recently as three weeks ago, albeit in a rain affected match.
Taylor retired hurt in that match, after scoring 9 off 18 balls and subsequently missed the T20 World Cup opener. That's not a place she likes to be and she doesn't intend to go back there as West Indies goes in search of reclaiming former glory. "I've never really felt good being on the sidelines," Taylor said after the Scotland game. "I get too nervous watching the game, so I like to be out there." Expect her there when West Indies walk out at Lord's on Wednesday.