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spiderbraidsIn this edition: Looking ahead to Thailand women's cricket's next qualifiers, an interview with the captain in the media, plus a quad-series :-)
But first, a meme :-)
Now that the WODI World Cup qualifiers are behind us, let's look ahead to the next Women's T20 World Cup qualification... The ICC is expanding that tournament from 10 to 12 teams for 2026, so you might think Thailand would have a slightly easier time qualifying than in 2020, but more on that anon :-) Wiki says, "A series of regional qualification tournaments will determine the teams that will take part in the Global Qualifier in 2025, where the top four teams will qualify for the World Cup scheduled to be held in England." Bangladesh and Scotland, as the bottom two teams from the previous T20 World Cup, are also participating in the Global Qualifier, which, well, Bangladesh pipped Thailand in the 2022 qualifier semis (and have made it to every finals since 2014), and Scotland beat Thailand in the groups in 2024 to claim a spot in the semis, before parlaying that into their first finals qualification by winning over Ireland (who had beaten Thailand in a warmup before the qualifier) in the semis... Let's see how things are shaking out in the other regions:
- Americas: The USA are already through to the qualifer, like last time
- Europe: 6 teams will compete in a "Division 2" in May before the top 2 compete against Ireland and Netherlands in "Division 1" in August to decide the two teams going through, and it's probably not stretching believability to suggest Ireland and Netherlands will make it through (last time Scotland and Netherlands came from the Europe qualifiers)
- East Asia-Pacific: Fiji will host the qualifiers in September; last time around Vanuatu made it through, defeating the usual regional powerhouse Papua New Guinea (who received Women's ODI status alongside Thailand, but didn't play an ODI until 2024) so probably one of those two
- Africa: still no indication of participants, date and format, but last time the qualifiers were Zimbabwe and Uganda, beating Namibia and Tanzania in their respective semis, so probably Zimbabwe and any one of the other 3
For Asia, the qualifiers are being played this May in Thailand, where we have 9 teams in 3 groups of 3, in double-round robin format, with Thailand playing Bhutan and Kuwait, and the winners of each group then play round-robin, with the top two heading to the Global Qualifier... Presumably that should be Thailand, UAE and Nepal, with the first two making it through, but given that a) two of Thailand's wins over Nepal in a tri-nation series earlier this year were close ones (chasing down Nepal's target with one over left in one case, and winning by 5 runs in another) and b) Nepal's U19 women's team already beat their Thai counterparts (and the UAE's) in regional qualification for the 2025 Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup, Nepal might be a closer match for Thailand than expected... Assuming that Thailand gets through to the Global Qualifiers, I'm suspecting two full members, Ireland and Bangladesh, are taking two of the spots, with Scotland very likely taking a 3rd, leaving the last spot to be contested between Thailand, UAE, and possibly the Netherlands (who have beaten Thailand recently) It'll depend on the group draw, and how they'll ultimately pick the top 4 (top two from each group? top 3 from each group into a Super 6 a la the abandoned 2021 ODI qualifiers?) but we'll wait to see if we'll get to that bridge before we cross it :-)
I mentioned as an addendum to the first article that the local press never mentions cricket... Well, in late April, the local over-the-air sports station T Sports 7 had an interview with captain Naruemol Chaiwai :-) In the interview, she helped explain cricket to Thai viewers (including the differences with baseball and softball, themselves niche sports locally) and talked about herself and the team:
- Chaiwai used to play softball for Chiang Mai Province (one of the relative cricket hotbeds in our country), before being talked into trying out for the national cricket team by her coach at 19, and she's since played cricket for 15 years
- Thailand women consider themselves 5th in Asia, behind the full-member powerhouses of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India, though Chaiwai did note that other than India, where cricket's the national sport, they've beaten the other three nations (though it's been a while since those wins happened, 7 years since their only win over Sri Lanka, for example)
- If Chaiwai were to casually walk around somewhere, she thinks that only 3 in 10 people who asked would have heard of cricket; I think that's a bit overestimating things
- Local support for the team is incomparable to the Asian powerhouses, and the team has to import its equipment from Malaysia, India and Australia; plus Chaiwai also mentioned that venues are also an issue (that might make a good topic for a later article, to talk about the local scene)
- Chaiwai revealed that in early May, Thailand would be playing a T20 quad-series, which at the time of the interview had not been mentioned anywhere in the press, but was mentioned a few days later along with the announcement of the UAE qualifiers squad, before then taking part in the Asia qualifiers, then the Sea Games (also hosted by Thailand) later in the year
T Sports also presented a full half-hour piece on cricket in March 2022, featuring an appearance from their prolific batswoman Natthakan Chantham :-)
On to the T20 quad-series, officially known as Thailand Women's T20 International Quad Series 2025 :-) Besides the hosts, the participants were the UAE (now with WODI status thanks to their WT20 ranking; yes, there's been criticism), Hong Kong, and Kuwait, interesting choices given that they're in the same group as Kuwait already, and are likely to play the UAE in the final round... Anyways, matchday 1 saw a win for the UAE against HK in the morning, then Thailand over Kuwait in the afternoon, which makes it clear that Thailand is very likely to top the group; while on matchday 2, Thailand beat HK in the morning, and UAE beat Kuwait in the afternoon :-)
After HK took 3rd over Kuwait in the morning of matchday 3, this left the UAE and Thailand to play for the top spot in the afternoon, and it must have been pretty exciting for those few (if any?) who attended the game in person, or watched on the YouTube livestream (easily the most watched livestream ever on Thailand Cricket's account by far)... or even followed the score live on the ICC website (raises hand) After Thailand put up a relatively decent total of 117, Thailand got the wicket of captain Esha Oza relatively quickly for just 9 runs, which was a big deal, since she scored the most runs in the previous year for the UAE :-) UAE's second-best batter, wicketkeeper Theertha Satish stuck around for 18 overs out of 20, picking up 41 runs, but when Thailand got her wicket on a caught ball, that left the UAE needing 20 runs from their last 12 balls and two wickets (though they were still above Thailand on the scoring curve) Thailand got the last two wickets in 7 balls for 4 runs, thus limiting the UAE to 101 and earning Thailand their first win over the UAE in over 2 1/2 years and 3 meetings (though a quick stat check shows that both of their meetings that the UAE won were at the same ground, Bayuemas in Kuala Lumpur, and in fact they're perfect at that ground with 5 out of 5 wins, so maybe there's something there that favors the UAE?)
With Thailand winning the quad-series, they look to be in good position to at least make the final round of the qualifiers, at least assuming all the games are played to a result, but it'll be interesting to see which games actually do get played, since cricket generally does not reschedule rain-outs (not only do games get shortened as needed, there's also a complicated system to determine a winner when the 2nd team has its overs reduced compared to the 1st team; that's how Thailand beat Bangladesh in 2021), and there's plenty of rain forecast in the coming week or so :-\ A quick look at the weather and cross-checking with the days games are scheduled, the prognosis does not look very good: the rain is expected to really get going on the afternoon of 10 May, the 2nd match-day, and then produce at least 1 cm of rain every day for the next week, so it would not surprise me if each team got at least one no-result... And it's slated to continue right into the second round, which could really do a number on the result, if, say, the UAE were to beat both Nepal and Thailand, and then Nepal and Thailand had a no-result for their match, so the 2nd qualifier would then be whoever lost by less net-run-rate :-\
Anyways, best of luck to Thailand women's cricket; they sure could use some :-)
But first, a meme :-)
Now that the WODI World Cup qualifiers are behind us, let's look ahead to the next Women's T20 World Cup qualification... The ICC is expanding that tournament from 10 to 12 teams for 2026, so you might think Thailand would have a slightly easier time qualifying than in 2020, but more on that anon :-) Wiki says, "A series of regional qualification tournaments will determine the teams that will take part in the Global Qualifier in 2025, where the top four teams will qualify for the World Cup scheduled to be held in England." Bangladesh and Scotland, as the bottom two teams from the previous T20 World Cup, are also participating in the Global Qualifier, which, well, Bangladesh pipped Thailand in the 2022 qualifier semis (and have made it to every finals since 2014), and Scotland beat Thailand in the groups in 2024 to claim a spot in the semis, before parlaying that into their first finals qualification by winning over Ireland (who had beaten Thailand in a warmup before the qualifier) in the semis... Let's see how things are shaking out in the other regions:
- Americas: The USA are already through to the qualifer, like last time
- Europe: 6 teams will compete in a "Division 2" in May before the top 2 compete against Ireland and Netherlands in "Division 1" in August to decide the two teams going through, and it's probably not stretching believability to suggest Ireland and Netherlands will make it through (last time Scotland and Netherlands came from the Europe qualifiers)
- East Asia-Pacific: Fiji will host the qualifiers in September; last time around Vanuatu made it through, defeating the usual regional powerhouse Papua New Guinea (who received Women's ODI status alongside Thailand, but didn't play an ODI until 2024) so probably one of those two
- Africa: still no indication of participants, date and format, but last time the qualifiers were Zimbabwe and Uganda, beating Namibia and Tanzania in their respective semis, so probably Zimbabwe and any one of the other 3
For Asia, the qualifiers are being played this May in Thailand, where we have 9 teams in 3 groups of 3, in double-round robin format, with Thailand playing Bhutan and Kuwait, and the winners of each group then play round-robin, with the top two heading to the Global Qualifier... Presumably that should be Thailand, UAE and Nepal, with the first two making it through, but given that a) two of Thailand's wins over Nepal in a tri-nation series earlier this year were close ones (chasing down Nepal's target with one over left in one case, and winning by 5 runs in another) and b) Nepal's U19 women's team already beat their Thai counterparts (and the UAE's) in regional qualification for the 2025 Under-19 Women's T20 World Cup, Nepal might be a closer match for Thailand than expected... Assuming that Thailand gets through to the Global Qualifiers, I'm suspecting two full members, Ireland and Bangladesh, are taking two of the spots, with Scotland very likely taking a 3rd, leaving the last spot to be contested between Thailand, UAE, and possibly the Netherlands (who have beaten Thailand recently) It'll depend on the group draw, and how they'll ultimately pick the top 4 (top two from each group? top 3 from each group into a Super 6 a la the abandoned 2021 ODI qualifiers?) but we'll wait to see if we'll get to that bridge before we cross it :-)
I mentioned as an addendum to the first article that the local press never mentions cricket... Well, in late April, the local over-the-air sports station T Sports 7 had an interview with captain Naruemol Chaiwai :-) In the interview, she helped explain cricket to Thai viewers (including the differences with baseball and softball, themselves niche sports locally) and talked about herself and the team:
- Chaiwai used to play softball for Chiang Mai Province (one of the relative cricket hotbeds in our country), before being talked into trying out for the national cricket team by her coach at 19, and she's since played cricket for 15 years
- Thailand women consider themselves 5th in Asia, behind the full-member powerhouses of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and India, though Chaiwai did note that other than India, where cricket's the national sport, they've beaten the other three nations (though it's been a while since those wins happened, 7 years since their only win over Sri Lanka, for example)
- If Chaiwai were to casually walk around somewhere, she thinks that only 3 in 10 people who asked would have heard of cricket; I think that's a bit overestimating things
- Local support for the team is incomparable to the Asian powerhouses, and the team has to import its equipment from Malaysia, India and Australia; plus Chaiwai also mentioned that venues are also an issue (that might make a good topic for a later article, to talk about the local scene)
- Chaiwai revealed that in early May, Thailand would be playing a T20 quad-series, which at the time of the interview had not been mentioned anywhere in the press, but was mentioned a few days later along with the announcement of the UAE qualifiers squad, before then taking part in the Asia qualifiers, then the Sea Games (also hosted by Thailand) later in the year
T Sports also presented a full half-hour piece on cricket in March 2022, featuring an appearance from their prolific batswoman Natthakan Chantham :-)
On to the T20 quad-series, officially known as Thailand Women's T20 International Quad Series 2025 :-) Besides the hosts, the participants were the UAE (now with WODI status thanks to their WT20 ranking; yes, there's been criticism), Hong Kong, and Kuwait, interesting choices given that they're in the same group as Kuwait already, and are likely to play the UAE in the final round... Anyways, matchday 1 saw a win for the UAE against HK in the morning, then Thailand over Kuwait in the afternoon, which makes it clear that Thailand is very likely to top the group; while on matchday 2, Thailand beat HK in the morning, and UAE beat Kuwait in the afternoon :-)
After HK took 3rd over Kuwait in the morning of matchday 3, this left the UAE and Thailand to play for the top spot in the afternoon, and it must have been pretty exciting for those few (if any?) who attended the game in person, or watched on the YouTube livestream (easily the most watched livestream ever on Thailand Cricket's account by far)... or even followed the score live on the ICC website (raises hand) After Thailand put up a relatively decent total of 117, Thailand got the wicket of captain Esha Oza relatively quickly for just 9 runs, which was a big deal, since she scored the most runs in the previous year for the UAE :-) UAE's second-best batter, wicketkeeper Theertha Satish stuck around for 18 overs out of 20, picking up 41 runs, but when Thailand got her wicket on a caught ball, that left the UAE needing 20 runs from their last 12 balls and two wickets (though they were still above Thailand on the scoring curve) Thailand got the last two wickets in 7 balls for 4 runs, thus limiting the UAE to 101 and earning Thailand their first win over the UAE in over 2 1/2 years and 3 meetings (though a quick stat check shows that both of their meetings that the UAE won were at the same ground, Bayuemas in Kuala Lumpur, and in fact they're perfect at that ground with 5 out of 5 wins, so maybe there's something there that favors the UAE?)
With Thailand winning the quad-series, they look to be in good position to at least make the final round of the qualifiers, at least assuming all the games are played to a result, but it'll be interesting to see which games actually do get played, since cricket generally does not reschedule rain-outs (not only do games get shortened as needed, there's also a complicated system to determine a winner when the 2nd team has its overs reduced compared to the 1st team; that's how Thailand beat Bangladesh in 2021), and there's plenty of rain forecast in the coming week or so :-\ A quick look at the weather and cross-checking with the days games are scheduled, the prognosis does not look very good: the rain is expected to really get going on the afternoon of 10 May, the 2nd match-day, and then produce at least 1 cm of rain every day for the next week, so it would not surprise me if each team got at least one no-result... And it's slated to continue right into the second round, which could really do a number on the result, if, say, the UAE were to beat both Nepal and Thailand, and then Nepal and Thailand had a no-result for their match, so the 2nd qualifier would then be whoever lost by less net-run-rate :-\
Anyways, best of luck to Thailand women's cricket; they sure could use some :-)
