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spiderbraidsPresenting a more stream-of-consciousness-ish diary for the 2025 Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier :-)
From a sarcastic tweet from Emerging_96 about Thailand's local men's cricket competition: "Thailand Cricket got their own ensemble of Xmen playing in their domestic T20 competition." That said, the Mutant Rebels mainly consisted of South Asian expats, and so did the other teams that were playing (there were teams called Pakistan Falcons and Tamil Nadu Tigers; no prizes for guessing where their players are from), except for Thailand Flash, consisting of Thailand national team players, who as it turned out won the competition :-)
In my preview for the 2025 Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier, I noted that the prognosis does not look very good for games to be played properly, as rain was forecast for most of the qualifiers, starting on the 2nd match-day...
Well, turns out there was a no-result and a shortened match even on the first match-day, despite it being the least rainy-looking day of the tournament :-\ Things went without a hitch at one of the two venues being used, Terdthai Cricket Ground, with Thailand taking 9 overs to overtake Kuwait's 56 in the morning, but over at the other venue, Asian Institute of Technology Ground, the morning match between Nepal and Hong Kong was abandoned, while the UAE and Malaysia match in the afternoon was reduced to just 7 overs each, with Malaysia getting 30 runs in their innings, before being overtaken by the UAE in 4 and a half overs... Net run rate wise, after day 1 Thailand had a better run rate than the UAE (3.533 to 3.048)
It's really not such a good look if a majority of matches end up being scrubbed due to the weather, but it wouldn't be the first time a tournament ran into constant rain trouble: back in 2023, Hong Kong hosted the inaugural ACC Women's T20 Emerging Teams Asia Cup, and the group stages were a rainy sh!tshow, with only 5 matches able to be contested out of 12 (one only running the absolute minimum of 5 overs per side), then one of the semis had to be abandoned as well, with the other having to play on a reserve day with only 7 overs per side :-\ (Apparently, Thailand's supposed to host the next one this year, so good luck with that... actually, more on that a bit later) That's nothing compared to the UAE having to scrub an entire preparatory quad-series ahead of the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup Qualifier due to atypical rains and flooding, though :-\
Anyways, on to day 2: The morning match at AIT between Thailand and Bhutan was scratched (AIT really needs to invest in drainage :-\ And it doesn't help either that the cric ground is shared with football), while at Terdthai, Nepal beat Bahrain in a 5-overs match, chasing down 41 with 4 balls to spare... In the afternoon at Terdthai, the UAE managed 192 in 16 overs without losing a single wicket before taking the unprecedented step of retiring out the whole side (I supposed it was to beat the rain, and no less than the BBC confirms it; test cricket has a mechanism called "declaring" to immediately end an innings without being bowled out, but that's not available for limited-overs cricket, hence this unusual tactic), then bowled out Qatar for 29 (!) in a bit more than 11 overs, pushing their net run rate to almost 7 (!!) At this point, the only teams still yet to see action are Bhutan and HK, and although they are both slated to play after a one-day break, the rain doesn't look like it's letting up by then :-\ (Thailand return to action the day after that, FWIW)
In light of the abandoned matches at AIT, on the first break day it was decided to move all double-headers to Terdthai and hold AIT games only in the afternoon to allow groundstaff more time to prep the outfield... On to match day 3, and surprise, more abandoned matches :-\ Kuwait beat Bhutan 85-50 in the morning at Terdthai, in a match reduced to 13 overs, whereas a large blast of rain across the Bangkok region over lunch time resulted in both afternoon matches being abandoned: at Terdthai, HK vs Bahrain had to be abandoned midway early in Bahrain's innings, thus leaving HK the only team yet to go to bat (much less get a result), whereas over at AIT, a match between Malaysia and Qatar was scratched altogether, so we've only had a single match played at AIT so far despite the time change :-\ hypocaust made a tweet noting the fundamental issue with hosting the tournament in Thailand in May: It's rainy between May and October (and this May has been particularly wet; Pathum Thani, AIT's location, has had 70% of last year's May rain in the first 12 days) :-\ Statsguru shows that prior to this tourney, all international WT20 matches in Thailand had been held between December and February (and the WODIs were held in November and April)
(And I suppose that it should be noted that the Emerging Teams Asia Cup, the one in Hong Kong with all the washouts, was held in June, which happens to be the wettest month in HK :-\)
Day 4 managed to turn out worse: There was rain in the morning, and as expected, the morning match at Terdthai between Thailand and Kuwait was washed out :-\ The real surprise was that despite the rain letting up mid-morning at Terdthai, which looked to me like should have left a couple hours to allow the pitch to be dried out, the afternoon match between UAE and Malaysia was also scrubbed as well :-\ The only match that went ahead was HK vs Nepal at AIT in the afternoon, and only running the minimum 5 overs at that (with HK chasing Nepal's 29 with 3 balls left) After the morning match had been abandoned, on Reddit, Anu9011 (already featured in the WODI qualifier diaries) complained about the tournament being "an absolute farce" due to all the abandoned matches and speculated that the "ICC probably opted to (play in Thailand at this time) because of cheap accommodation."
So here's the state of the groups after 4 match-days:
- Group A: Thailand are ahead of Kuwait by one point with one match remaining (both against Bhutan): Thailand are going first, and a win for Thailand would be enough to see them through to the final round on points, whereas a washout for Thailand against would in theory give Kuwait an opportunity to overtake them on NRR with a win, but only by batting first, and with a 181-run margin of victory over a full 20 overs, or, say a 167-run margin over 15 overs, or 154-run margin over 10 overs (Statsguru says Kuwait's 35-run win over Bhutan in this very tournament was their biggest-ever margin of victory, and Bhutan's largest defeat was by "only" 78 runs, last year to Indonesia; only 26 matches in total out of about 2300 have ever had a 181-run margin of victory or more, and though one of those was in Bangkok, don't expect a repeat :-))
- Group B: UAE are ahead of Malaysia by 3 points with one match remaining (both against Qatar): Qatar is the only team that can theoretically catch up, and they would have to win their last two matches by a total of 582 runs, and that's with a full 20 overs in both matches, so we can safely put the UAE through :-)
- Group C: HK are ahead of Nepal by 1 point with one match remaining (both against Bahrain): Now this one is most interesting: Ignoring the possibility of Bahrain beating both HK and Nepal (they have never beaten either team), a win for HK would take Nepal out, but they're playing at AIT, and if HK do get washed out, Nepal can squeak past HK with a 25-run margin of victory over 20 overs, 20-runs over 15, or 16-runs over 10 (alternatively, given that they've always batted second against Bahrain, they could also chase down 50 runs in about 15 overs, and 100 runs in a bit over 16 overs) Nepal are actually going first and are capable of such results, so their result will dictate exactly what HK will need :-)
While we're on the subject of NRR, a little academic exercise: In the abandoned 2021 WODI qualifiers, Bangladesh were to play Zimbabwe in one of the cancelled games, and Zimbabwe could still theoretically have qualified for the Super 6's with a win (which also probably would have ensured at least a Women's Championship spot for Thailand on points carried over alone), so I decided to calculate how much it would have taken: Assuming that Bangladesh would have gone first and scored 200 in their 50 overs, Zimbabwe would have needed to chase it down in 13 overs to overtake them in the standings; whereas with Zimbabwe scoring 200 in their 50 overs, they then would have needed to limit Bangladesh to 77... If Zimbabwe were to have won by a more-realistic 50 runs, they would have needed Pakistan to lose by 176 runs, and a 100-run win would have required a Pakistan loss by 127 runs (to the US, mind!)
And while we're on the subject of having to dry out the ground, check out this humorous look at the lengths some matches in full-member countries have gone, ranging from electric fans and hair dryers, to hot coal and even army helicopters (!) Not to mention that time the English spectators famously helped dry The Oval at the 1968 Ashes :-)
During the 3rd match-day, the guys at Emerging Cricket came out with their podcast recapping the WODI qualifiers, and of course they spent their time talking about the associates, Thailand included (and yes, they did bring up the 2021 debacle) Good: Batting from Nattaya Boochatham, and bowlers Phannita Maya and Tipatcha Phuttawong... Bad: Lack of support for Nattaya, lack of wickets from the other bowlers, and more importantly, lack of robust upcoming talent: "There seems to be a problem with Thailand coming up with new talent. I don't know how deep the talent pool is in Thailand. And as you said, the players are getting older as well. So it the future doesn't look that bright for them, unfortunately. There's definitely a lot of warning signs for them. ... A bit of a rethink perhaps required for, you know, Cricket Association of Thailand because, yeah, as as as we're sort of looking around, who's gonna come in? You know, the U-19s have been disappointing in the last couple of cycles, failing to qualify for the U-19s' World Cup." They also get to the core of the real issue: "Honestly, in my opinion, there really needs to be an ODI League 2 structure as it exists for the men. There needs to be a similar structure for the women as well to give the next tier of associate teams who are not involved in the women's ODI championship structure with regular match practice if ICC want to take women's cricket seriously." They even commented on how Ireland "were quite competitive in all their games, I think. And that's just because they were playing in the women's championship. ... Contrary to Thailand, Ireland also are involved in the women's ODI championship, which is a big leg up. So unlike Thailand, they do have a bright future." (Though they went without mentioning that the last Championship slot from 2021 likely should have come down to a match between these two sides back then :-\)
On to match-day 5, and here's what's up: At Terdthai, Thailand vs Bhutan in the morning, followed by Bahrain vs Nepal; at AIT, Qatar vs UAE... Following these matches also required keeping an eye on the weather radar (or maybe it's just me), which thankfully there's a local site for that :-) Overnight rains reduced Thailand-Bhutan to 9 overs, and Thailand booked their ticket to the Super 3 with a comfortable 88-43 win (with the obligatory rain complaint, this time on Cricket Thailand's FB), while over at AIT, Qatar-UAE was called off, putting the UAE through outright :-) Nepal-Bahrain was the more interesting match: After Bahrain got to 76 runs from 12 overs and 4 balls, a large squall of rain resulted in over an hour's delay, and play resumed with Nepal taking over with a revised target of 56 from 7 overs, which Nepal matched in 5 overs and 2 balls, putting their NRR to 0.830, short of HK's 0.867, so not only would Nepal need to hope for the match between HK-Bahrain at AIT to go ahead, they'd also need Bahrain to win (well, at least that's what I thought at the time, more anon), which I repeat they have never done, then again, they've only ever met once
Honestly, I think it would behoove the Cricket Association (especially AIT) to invest in a couple of Super Soppers to keep the field dry... I'd even be okay with these Indian clones (bonus for AIT: it also works for football :-))
Match-day 6: At Terdthai, the morning match went without delays nor reduced overs, with Bhutan chasing down Kuwait's 92 with 2 balls to spare, and in the afternoon, Qatar managed 39 in 16 and a half overs before rain ended their turn, and Malaysia chased down their total in 4 overs flat without loss of wicket :-) Over at AIT, surprise, another abandoned match, with HK-Bahrain being abandoned, so that's HK through on NRR, right? Not so fast :-\ HK did have equal points and better NRR than Nepal, AND beat Nepal in the only match they played to a result, but it seems like they were using number of wins to break ties first (that's actually more common practice apparently), so Nepal is through instead, and the Reddit thread is complaining about it alongside the rain: "Tournament has been ruined by rain, whoever decided to schedule this in the rainy season needs to be sacked." In response to a Reddit post referring to Nepal progressing due to the rain-out as a Miracle in Thailand, Anu9011 said it best: "More like farce in Thailand." LOL, and even replies on the official Cricket Association of Nepal Facebook post on it bring up the rain issue :-)
That said, Thailand's qualification for the semis of the 2022 Women's Asia Cup was also on the back of a rain-out: Thailand got 3 wins (including one over Pakistan), while Bangladesh headed into the last match day with 2 wins and a better NRR with a game against UAE in hand, which one would have expected to be an easy win, but ended up getting washed out instead :-)
So anyways, for the Super 3's, it's Thailand-UAE on 18 May, then Nepal-UAE on the 19th, and Thailand-Nepal on the 20th, all in the morning at Terdthai... Thankfully, more rain is being forecast for the break day rather than any of the match days, so it looks likely we're getting full (or almost full) games :-)
The BBC published an article on Scotland women's cricket titled "How women's team have gone from team of the year to no fixtures", which basically talks about how lack of financial support is preventing them from holding matches (and they haven't even played at home since 2022) The article included these comments from their players... Sarah Bryce: "It's just really frustrating because it's difficult to know how we keep pushing forward as a team when we don't have those opportunities to develop." Abtaha Maqsood: "We feel pretty helpless. There's not really much we can do about the situation if we don't get the financial support that I think we deserve at this point." Arguably, many of their issues (especially these comments) also apply to Thailand, minus the supportive full-member neighbor :-\ (If you were to ask me, and should money be no object [obviously a big if], I'd suggest trying to have Thailand's teams be available as warmup opponents for stronger countries' domestic teams; that said, the senior women have played Indian state teams in preparation for each of the last two global qualifiers, but it would be nice to see them do this more regularly, and not just the women either, like, for example, having the men's team play a Nepali provincial side to help them prepare for their national championship)
Anyways, on to the Super 3's: First up was Thailand-UAE, where after Thailand put up 144 in their 20 overs, the UAE only managed 90 in theirs (with 19 total from stars Esha Oza and Theertha Satish), giving Thailand a win and 2.7 NRR, and mostly ensuring passage to the Global Qualifiers, pending the result of UAE-Nepal the next day :-) (so I thought, more on that anon) Against Nepal, the UAE put up 114 in their 20 overs, and in another one of those chases that must have been something those who witnessed it in person, via livestream, or via livescore (raises hand, again), Nepal chased it down with 3 balls left, thus also ensuring not just their own qualification for Global Qualifier but also Thailand's, without even needing the last match between them to play out :-) This actually initially surprised me due to their ranking (16 vs 21 at the time of the match), but a quick look at Statsguru shows that UAE have only ever beaten Nepal once, in the 2021 edition of this tournament :-) The ICC also carried over the results from the first round, not that it makes any difference anymore (though it did mean that Thailand already qualified after their first win no matter what: they'd still be ahead of Nepal with a UAE and Nepal win each, while they'd still be ahead of UAE if Nepal won both of the remaining matches)
But just for fun, and taking the carryover into account, I decided to switch around the runrates for UAE-Nepal, and determine just what Nepal would have needed against Thailand to qualify after a 114-118 loss... Either a 50 run win when batting first, chasing down 150 runs in 81 balls, or 100 runs in 77 balls, though as mentioned above, with the carryover, Thailand would still go through in all cases :-)
Anyways, so just like that, one of Thailand's potential competition for, effectively, one finals spot has been taken out of the picture... That said, that still leaves the Netherlands, and though the Thais have a better record (9-3), they'll probably want to buff up anyway, given that one of the Netherlands' wins came in Nepal earlier this year, and Thailand lost to both Netherlands and UAE in the warmups for the previous WT20 Global Qualifier (though those don't count for official WT20 records)
The final match, Thailand-Nepal, was effectively the tournament final, and although both teams were already through, Thailand probably wanted to make a statement at home :-) Thailand batted first, racing out to 158 in their 20 overs (on the back of half-centuries from Nattaya Boochatham and Nannapat Koncharoenkai; the latter winning Player of the Match and Series honors), before holding Nepal to just 80 in their overs (with three straight wickets, a hat-trick, from Onnicha Kamchomphu) to win the tournament, which is about as strong of a statement victory Thailand could have hoped to make :-) (though at least one Facebook user was still complaining about the handling of the tournament :-\)
Next up for Thailand is the ACC Women's Emerging Asia Cup, which instead of Thailand is now due to be held in Sri Lanka next month (and hopefully they can get their visas sorted out this time, after visa issues forced them to withdraw from the last one in Hong Kong), but there's conflicting information about whether India (the big kahuna of Asian cricket, regardless of gender) will be sending a team :-\ (A Pakistani is running the ACC, and India and Pakistan not exactly on good terms right now :-\ Well, they were already not on good terms earlier, given Pakistani's arrangement for the Women's WODI World Cup finals in India, but things have gotten really bad)
That said, I leave you now with this tweet from the ICC, featuring our players with a cute canine mascot :-)
From a sarcastic tweet from Emerging_96 about Thailand's local men's cricket competition: "Thailand Cricket got their own ensemble of Xmen playing in their domestic T20 competition." That said, the Mutant Rebels mainly consisted of South Asian expats, and so did the other teams that were playing (there were teams called Pakistan Falcons and Tamil Nadu Tigers; no prizes for guessing where their players are from), except for Thailand Flash, consisting of Thailand national team players, who as it turned out won the competition :-)
In my preview for the 2025 Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier, I noted that the prognosis does not look very good for games to be played properly, as rain was forecast for most of the qualifiers, starting on the 2nd match-day...
Well, turns out there was a no-result and a shortened match even on the first match-day, despite it being the least rainy-looking day of the tournament :-\ Things went without a hitch at one of the two venues being used, Terdthai Cricket Ground, with Thailand taking 9 overs to overtake Kuwait's 56 in the morning, but over at the other venue, Asian Institute of Technology Ground, the morning match between Nepal and Hong Kong was abandoned, while the UAE and Malaysia match in the afternoon was reduced to just 7 overs each, with Malaysia getting 30 runs in their innings, before being overtaken by the UAE in 4 and a half overs... Net run rate wise, after day 1 Thailand had a better run rate than the UAE (3.533 to 3.048)
It's really not such a good look if a majority of matches end up being scrubbed due to the weather, but it wouldn't be the first time a tournament ran into constant rain trouble: back in 2023, Hong Kong hosted the inaugural ACC Women's T20 Emerging Teams Asia Cup, and the group stages were a rainy sh!tshow, with only 5 matches able to be contested out of 12 (one only running the absolute minimum of 5 overs per side), then one of the semis had to be abandoned as well, with the other having to play on a reserve day with only 7 overs per side :-\ (Apparently, Thailand's supposed to host the next one this year, so good luck with that... actually, more on that a bit later) That's nothing compared to the UAE having to scrub an entire preparatory quad-series ahead of the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup Qualifier due to atypical rains and flooding, though :-\
Anyways, on to day 2: The morning match at AIT between Thailand and Bhutan was scratched (AIT really needs to invest in drainage :-\ And it doesn't help either that the cric ground is shared with football), while at Terdthai, Nepal beat Bahrain in a 5-overs match, chasing down 41 with 4 balls to spare... In the afternoon at Terdthai, the UAE managed 192 in 16 overs without losing a single wicket before taking the unprecedented step of retiring out the whole side (I supposed it was to beat the rain, and no less than the BBC confirms it; test cricket has a mechanism called "declaring" to immediately end an innings without being bowled out, but that's not available for limited-overs cricket, hence this unusual tactic), then bowled out Qatar for 29 (!) in a bit more than 11 overs, pushing their net run rate to almost 7 (!!) At this point, the only teams still yet to see action are Bhutan and HK, and although they are both slated to play after a one-day break, the rain doesn't look like it's letting up by then :-\ (Thailand return to action the day after that, FWIW)
In light of the abandoned matches at AIT, on the first break day it was decided to move all double-headers to Terdthai and hold AIT games only in the afternoon to allow groundstaff more time to prep the outfield... On to match day 3, and surprise, more abandoned matches :-\ Kuwait beat Bhutan 85-50 in the morning at Terdthai, in a match reduced to 13 overs, whereas a large blast of rain across the Bangkok region over lunch time resulted in both afternoon matches being abandoned: at Terdthai, HK vs Bahrain had to be abandoned midway early in Bahrain's innings, thus leaving HK the only team yet to go to bat (much less get a result), whereas over at AIT, a match between Malaysia and Qatar was scratched altogether, so we've only had a single match played at AIT so far despite the time change :-\ hypocaust made a tweet noting the fundamental issue with hosting the tournament in Thailand in May: It's rainy between May and October (and this May has been particularly wet; Pathum Thani, AIT's location, has had 70% of last year's May rain in the first 12 days) :-\ Statsguru shows that prior to this tourney, all international WT20 matches in Thailand had been held between December and February (and the WODIs were held in November and April)
(And I suppose that it should be noted that the Emerging Teams Asia Cup, the one in Hong Kong with all the washouts, was held in June, which happens to be the wettest month in HK :-\)
Day 4 managed to turn out worse: There was rain in the morning, and as expected, the morning match at Terdthai between Thailand and Kuwait was washed out :-\ The real surprise was that despite the rain letting up mid-morning at Terdthai, which looked to me like should have left a couple hours to allow the pitch to be dried out, the afternoon match between UAE and Malaysia was also scrubbed as well :-\ The only match that went ahead was HK vs Nepal at AIT in the afternoon, and only running the minimum 5 overs at that (with HK chasing Nepal's 29 with 3 balls left) After the morning match had been abandoned, on Reddit, Anu9011 (already featured in the WODI qualifier diaries) complained about the tournament being "an absolute farce" due to all the abandoned matches and speculated that the "ICC probably opted to (play in Thailand at this time) because of cheap accommodation."
So here's the state of the groups after 4 match-days:
- Group A: Thailand are ahead of Kuwait by one point with one match remaining (both against Bhutan): Thailand are going first, and a win for Thailand would be enough to see them through to the final round on points, whereas a washout for Thailand against would in theory give Kuwait an opportunity to overtake them on NRR with a win, but only by batting first, and with a 181-run margin of victory over a full 20 overs, or, say a 167-run margin over 15 overs, or 154-run margin over 10 overs (Statsguru says Kuwait's 35-run win over Bhutan in this very tournament was their biggest-ever margin of victory, and Bhutan's largest defeat was by "only" 78 runs, last year to Indonesia; only 26 matches in total out of about 2300 have ever had a 181-run margin of victory or more, and though one of those was in Bangkok, don't expect a repeat :-))
- Group B: UAE are ahead of Malaysia by 3 points with one match remaining (both against Qatar): Qatar is the only team that can theoretically catch up, and they would have to win their last two matches by a total of 582 runs, and that's with a full 20 overs in both matches, so we can safely put the UAE through :-)
- Group C: HK are ahead of Nepal by 1 point with one match remaining (both against Bahrain): Now this one is most interesting: Ignoring the possibility of Bahrain beating both HK and Nepal (they have never beaten either team), a win for HK would take Nepal out, but they're playing at AIT, and if HK do get washed out, Nepal can squeak past HK with a 25-run margin of victory over 20 overs, 20-runs over 15, or 16-runs over 10 (alternatively, given that they've always batted second against Bahrain, they could also chase down 50 runs in about 15 overs, and 100 runs in a bit over 16 overs) Nepal are actually going first and are capable of such results, so their result will dictate exactly what HK will need :-)
While we're on the subject of NRR, a little academic exercise: In the abandoned 2021 WODI qualifiers, Bangladesh were to play Zimbabwe in one of the cancelled games, and Zimbabwe could still theoretically have qualified for the Super 6's with a win (which also probably would have ensured at least a Women's Championship spot for Thailand on points carried over alone), so I decided to calculate how much it would have taken: Assuming that Bangladesh would have gone first and scored 200 in their 50 overs, Zimbabwe would have needed to chase it down in 13 overs to overtake them in the standings; whereas with Zimbabwe scoring 200 in their 50 overs, they then would have needed to limit Bangladesh to 77... If Zimbabwe were to have won by a more-realistic 50 runs, they would have needed Pakistan to lose by 176 runs, and a 100-run win would have required a Pakistan loss by 127 runs (to the US, mind!)
And while we're on the subject of having to dry out the ground, check out this humorous look at the lengths some matches in full-member countries have gone, ranging from electric fans and hair dryers, to hot coal and even army helicopters (!) Not to mention that time the English spectators famously helped dry The Oval at the 1968 Ashes :-)
During the 3rd match-day, the guys at Emerging Cricket came out with their podcast recapping the WODI qualifiers, and of course they spent their time talking about the associates, Thailand included (and yes, they did bring up the 2021 debacle) Good: Batting from Nattaya Boochatham, and bowlers Phannita Maya and Tipatcha Phuttawong... Bad: Lack of support for Nattaya, lack of wickets from the other bowlers, and more importantly, lack of robust upcoming talent: "There seems to be a problem with Thailand coming up with new talent. I don't know how deep the talent pool is in Thailand. And as you said, the players are getting older as well. So it the future doesn't look that bright for them, unfortunately. There's definitely a lot of warning signs for them. ... A bit of a rethink perhaps required for, you know, Cricket Association of Thailand because, yeah, as as as we're sort of looking around, who's gonna come in? You know, the U-19s have been disappointing in the last couple of cycles, failing to qualify for the U-19s' World Cup." They also get to the core of the real issue: "Honestly, in my opinion, there really needs to be an ODI League 2 structure as it exists for the men. There needs to be a similar structure for the women as well to give the next tier of associate teams who are not involved in the women's ODI championship structure with regular match practice if ICC want to take women's cricket seriously." They even commented on how Ireland "were quite competitive in all their games, I think. And that's just because they were playing in the women's championship. ... Contrary to Thailand, Ireland also are involved in the women's ODI championship, which is a big leg up. So unlike Thailand, they do have a bright future." (Though they went without mentioning that the last Championship slot from 2021 likely should have come down to a match between these two sides back then :-\)
On to match-day 5, and here's what's up: At Terdthai, Thailand vs Bhutan in the morning, followed by Bahrain vs Nepal; at AIT, Qatar vs UAE... Following these matches also required keeping an eye on the weather radar (or maybe it's just me), which thankfully there's a local site for that :-) Overnight rains reduced Thailand-Bhutan to 9 overs, and Thailand booked their ticket to the Super 3 with a comfortable 88-43 win (with the obligatory rain complaint, this time on Cricket Thailand's FB), while over at AIT, Qatar-UAE was called off, putting the UAE through outright :-) Nepal-Bahrain was the more interesting match: After Bahrain got to 76 runs from 12 overs and 4 balls, a large squall of rain resulted in over an hour's delay, and play resumed with Nepal taking over with a revised target of 56 from 7 overs, which Nepal matched in 5 overs and 2 balls, putting their NRR to 0.830, short of HK's 0.867, so not only would Nepal need to hope for the match between HK-Bahrain at AIT to go ahead, they'd also need Bahrain to win (well, at least that's what I thought at the time, more anon), which I repeat they have never done, then again, they've only ever met once
Honestly, I think it would behoove the Cricket Association (especially AIT) to invest in a couple of Super Soppers to keep the field dry... I'd even be okay with these Indian clones (bonus for AIT: it also works for football :-))
Match-day 6: At Terdthai, the morning match went without delays nor reduced overs, with Bhutan chasing down Kuwait's 92 with 2 balls to spare, and in the afternoon, Qatar managed 39 in 16 and a half overs before rain ended their turn, and Malaysia chased down their total in 4 overs flat without loss of wicket :-) Over at AIT, surprise, another abandoned match, with HK-Bahrain being abandoned, so that's HK through on NRR, right? Not so fast :-\ HK did have equal points and better NRR than Nepal, AND beat Nepal in the only match they played to a result, but it seems like they were using number of wins to break ties first (that's actually more common practice apparently), so Nepal is through instead, and the Reddit thread is complaining about it alongside the rain: "Tournament has been ruined by rain, whoever decided to schedule this in the rainy season needs to be sacked." In response to a Reddit post referring to Nepal progressing due to the rain-out as a Miracle in Thailand, Anu9011 said it best: "More like farce in Thailand." LOL, and even replies on the official Cricket Association of Nepal Facebook post on it bring up the rain issue :-)
That said, Thailand's qualification for the semis of the 2022 Women's Asia Cup was also on the back of a rain-out: Thailand got 3 wins (including one over Pakistan), while Bangladesh headed into the last match day with 2 wins and a better NRR with a game against UAE in hand, which one would have expected to be an easy win, but ended up getting washed out instead :-)
So anyways, for the Super 3's, it's Thailand-UAE on 18 May, then Nepal-UAE on the 19th, and Thailand-Nepal on the 20th, all in the morning at Terdthai... Thankfully, more rain is being forecast for the break day rather than any of the match days, so it looks likely we're getting full (or almost full) games :-)
The BBC published an article on Scotland women's cricket titled "How women's team have gone from team of the year to no fixtures", which basically talks about how lack of financial support is preventing them from holding matches (and they haven't even played at home since 2022) The article included these comments from their players... Sarah Bryce: "It's just really frustrating because it's difficult to know how we keep pushing forward as a team when we don't have those opportunities to develop." Abtaha Maqsood: "We feel pretty helpless. There's not really much we can do about the situation if we don't get the financial support that I think we deserve at this point." Arguably, many of their issues (especially these comments) also apply to Thailand, minus the supportive full-member neighbor :-\ (If you were to ask me, and should money be no object [obviously a big if], I'd suggest trying to have Thailand's teams be available as warmup opponents for stronger countries' domestic teams; that said, the senior women have played Indian state teams in preparation for each of the last two global qualifiers, but it would be nice to see them do this more regularly, and not just the women either, like, for example, having the men's team play a Nepali provincial side to help them prepare for their national championship)
Anyways, on to the Super 3's: First up was Thailand-UAE, where after Thailand put up 144 in their 20 overs, the UAE only managed 90 in theirs (with 19 total from stars Esha Oza and Theertha Satish), giving Thailand a win and 2.7 NRR, and mostly ensuring passage to the Global Qualifiers, pending the result of UAE-Nepal the next day :-) (so I thought, more on that anon) Against Nepal, the UAE put up 114 in their 20 overs, and in another one of those chases that must have been something those who witnessed it in person, via livestream, or via livescore (raises hand, again), Nepal chased it down with 3 balls left, thus also ensuring not just their own qualification for Global Qualifier but also Thailand's, without even needing the last match between them to play out :-) This actually initially surprised me due to their ranking (16 vs 21 at the time of the match), but a quick look at Statsguru shows that UAE have only ever beaten Nepal once, in the 2021 edition of this tournament :-) The ICC also carried over the results from the first round, not that it makes any difference anymore (though it did mean that Thailand already qualified after their first win no matter what: they'd still be ahead of Nepal with a UAE and Nepal win each, while they'd still be ahead of UAE if Nepal won both of the remaining matches)
But just for fun, and taking the carryover into account, I decided to switch around the runrates for UAE-Nepal, and determine just what Nepal would have needed against Thailand to qualify after a 114-118 loss... Either a 50 run win when batting first, chasing down 150 runs in 81 balls, or 100 runs in 77 balls, though as mentioned above, with the carryover, Thailand would still go through in all cases :-)
Anyways, so just like that, one of Thailand's potential competition for, effectively, one finals spot has been taken out of the picture... That said, that still leaves the Netherlands, and though the Thais have a better record (9-3), they'll probably want to buff up anyway, given that one of the Netherlands' wins came in Nepal earlier this year, and Thailand lost to both Netherlands and UAE in the warmups for the previous WT20 Global Qualifier (though those don't count for official WT20 records)
The final match, Thailand-Nepal, was effectively the tournament final, and although both teams were already through, Thailand probably wanted to make a statement at home :-) Thailand batted first, racing out to 158 in their 20 overs (on the back of half-centuries from Nattaya Boochatham and Nannapat Koncharoenkai; the latter winning Player of the Match and Series honors), before holding Nepal to just 80 in their overs (with three straight wickets, a hat-trick, from Onnicha Kamchomphu) to win the tournament, which is about as strong of a statement victory Thailand could have hoped to make :-) (though at least one Facebook user was still complaining about the handling of the tournament :-\)
Next up for Thailand is the ACC Women's Emerging Asia Cup, which instead of Thailand is now due to be held in Sri Lanka next month (and hopefully they can get their visas sorted out this time, after visa issues forced them to withdraw from the last one in Hong Kong), but there's conflicting information about whether India (the big kahuna of Asian cricket, regardless of gender) will be sending a team :-\ (A Pakistani is running the ACC, and India and Pakistan not exactly on good terms right now :-\ Well, they were already not on good terms earlier, given Pakistani's arrangement for the Women's WODI World Cup finals in India, but things have gotten really bad)
That said, I leave you now with this tweet from the ICC, featuring our players with a cute canine mascot :-)
