Deandra Dottin ready to return to bowling

Still managing a shoulder injury that kept her out of the game for a prolonged period, Dottin didn't bowl during the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in Australia earlier this year.

But the extended break from the game, on account of the pandemic, has afforded her the time to adequately recover to perform fast bowling duties once again during the upcoming series against England.

"I'm feeling pretty good at this moment," Dottin said. "It's been a long time I've been out. I've been working on specific stuff, as in strengthening my injury (area), getting back out there. My form is there but there's still more areas that I can improve on."

During that T20 World Cup, West Indies failed to progress past the first round, their fate sealed by a 46-run defeat to England. But Dottin, who herself made just 12 runs during the tournament, is more concerned with how West Indies now bounce back.

"I just think that there are areas that we need to work on and it just so happened that the areas we needed to click didn't," Dottin said. "We just needed to go back to the drawing board and watch over footage, or where we went wrong, and just go from there. It's okay to accept failure but it is how you bounce back."

That West Indies will have the opportunity to showcase their improvement is an outcome of quick and decisive administrative planning and co-operation on part of their players to travel to England on short notice, after ECB scrambled to arrange a series following India and South Africa's withdrawal due to complications arising from COVID-19.

Dottin is viewing it as yet another opportunity to put the limelight on the women's game. "We definitely took the invitation from England because we were actually so excited. It is a last-minute thing that has been put in place, but we actually made it and were open to travel. It's very important. the games are televised so it will get people's attention on the game and how women's cricket is actually played."

England's players are grateful towards West Indies for making the series happen, averting the possibility of going a whole summer without international women's cricket for the first time since 1995.

"For quite a while, it was knockback after knockback. For the West Indies to pull through and help us out was a relief more than anything," England batter Tammy Beaumont was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.

"I thought it was an amazing effort by their men's team to come, as well as their women's team now agreeing to. They've had hardly any training, either together or even within islands, so it's a really big commitment. We're so grateful to them for taking up this opportunity to come and play."