A team with a difference

Short boundaries, less use of the bottom hand and too many shots played along the ground. That's about the norm in women's cricket. But when the West Indies women take to bat these norms go out of the window, because the West Indies are a team with a difference.
While most female cricketers around the world struggle to clear the shortish boundaries, the West Indies top-order batters clear them with ease. In fact most of the sixes hit by openers Stephanie Taylor -- West Indies' most illustrious cricketer -- and Kycia Knight during the match against England yesterday were so big that they would have qualified as sixes even in a men's game.
Yes, these girls have the ability to play like their more celebrated counterparts of the opposite sex. They have the power, they have the athleticism but they also have finesse. They dive around in the field and have a varied bowling line-up. And above all they carry a swagger which is typical of the Caribbean.
You could be forgiven for thinking you were watching the West Indies men in action while being at a women's game, because every now and then you would find a Marlon Samuels or a Dwayne Bravo or a Samuel Badree in action.
There is actually the women's version of Chris Gayle in the team. Although a right-handed batswoman unlike the Jamaican star, Deandra Dottin can change the course of the game within a few overs. The 22-year-old Barbadian, who is a cousin of former West Indies fast bowler Ottis Gibson, struck the first women's International Twenty20 hundred and the fastest ever by smashing an unbeaten 112 against South Africa during the 2010 World Twenty20.
Apart from being a hard-hitting batswoman and a more-than-useful medium pacer, Dottin used to be a champion athlete for Barbados at junior levels before she turned her attention to full-time cricket.
And this multidisciplinary background is perhaps what makes the West Indies such an enterprising side and a force to reckon with.