Howzat, part 8: Onward to Nepal
Feb. 2nd, 2026 07:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsMy longest Howzat yet, covering the World Cup T20 Global qualifiers :-)
Previously on Howzat, Thailand went on a high performance camping trip to South Africa, and seemed to be putting themselves into a good position for the World Cup T20 Global qualifiers in Nepal, by winning the first-ever ICC Women's Emerging Nations Cup (there'll be a second this coming December) and then winning the SEA Games golds on a trot, all at home... until two of their veterans retired immediately after the SEA Games: Nattaya Boochatham, and Rosenanee Kanoh... Nattaya had just settled into playing the role of opening batter since Apr 2024, whereas Rosenanee had spent most of her career batting towards the bottom of the order (and hadn't even turned 27 yet, whereas Nattaya had just turned 39, so I can understand that; for comparison Natthakan Chantham was 29, turning 30 on New Year's) It remains to be seen who, if anyone, is coming to replace them, since, as demonstrated by our U19 results, we don't exactly have a robust talent pipeline :-\ (Though I'd hope that they could at least help mentor the next generation and/or spread the word about the sport's existence) Also of concern is that during the Emerging Nations Cup, Thailand lost to Papua New Guinea (part of the other group in the qualifiers, and likely to make the Super 6's) for the first time in history, and it had been PNG that Thailand defeated back in 2019 to make their only World Cup so far (since then, Thailand's been through A LOT, including having a chance for a steady schedule of games awarded to Ireland on a technicality)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1q47eq0/comment/nxr6bnz/
And speaking of Thailand being deprived of opportunities to play quality opposition due to circumstance, Redditor Anu9011 announced: "There will be a Women’s ACC Premier Cup in February which probably means the postponed Women’s Emerging Cup in the current cycle won’t happen. UAE, Malaysia, Thailand and Nepal women won’t get the opportunity to play against A-teams of the full members in Asia. A huge loss." (By A-teams, they actually mean second stringers below the "main" national team) This news came as a result of, from all places, the Cricket Association of Nepal's announcement of their 2026 cricket calendar, which proposes the Premiere Cup in February, then the Asia Cup in July... There hasn't been any other references to this elsewhere, and even the ACC Twitter doesn't make any mention of this, but given that the corresponding men's tournament will have another edition this year as well, wouldn't surprise me :-\ The previous Premier Cup had qualified the mentioned four teams for the Asia Cup proper in 2024 (originally they only would have put through the finalists, UAE and Malaysia) and was also supposed to have served as qualification for last year's Emerging Cup, which was always going to be the top four... So despite being in the initial line up for both editions of the Emerging Cup, Thailand has yet to actually play a match against full member second stringers :-\ (Well, except that time in 2023 where they played Pakistan and Windies' A-teams and lost both games) More on that anon, however...
https://www.facebook.com/CricketThailand.Thai/posts/pfbid02erGq5ZEhPKBdPrYtB5Fg8gaqcrhYFy1m9tXr1kSJgiwRzWRLyaR6hvt5y8B2Js76l
Internal celebration of the SEA Games win, plus giving out awards to outstanding players
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1q6c748/icc_womens_t20_world_cup_2026_qualifier_fixtures/
Schedule for the warm ups and qualifiers proper, with Thailand playing Namibia at Tribhuvan Uni on the 14th, then Bangladesh (gulp) at Mulpani on the 16th, and the qualifiers proper starting on the 18th :-) Also, no final after the Super 6's, so the format matches with the abandoned Harare 2021 tournament
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1q97xb3/dutch_handed_big_boost_as_heather_siegers_comes/
Interestingly enough, the Netherlands' Heather Siegers just came out of her (very brief) retirement to give the Dutch a better chance of qualifying at the Nepal qualifiers :-\ That said, CarnivalSorts still "definitely still fanc(ies) Thailand over them on the spinning wickets in Nepal" :-) Meanwhile, Thailand still hadn't announced their line up two days before the first warmup (with Zimbabwe the only other team to leave it so late), with comments under this post wondering what's taking them so long, and noting that the retired players were still listed on the ICC site
https://www.icc-cricket.com/tournaments/womens-cwc-qualifier-2025/videos/natthakan-chantham-thailand-s-cricketing-pioneer-icc-100-cricket
While looking up news, I found this interview with stalwart Natthakan Chantham held during the 2025 WODI World Cup qualifier :-)
https://www.facebook.com/CricketThailand.Thai/posts/pfbid02kUhqTWLZUpuYmPzG36mkvxUcGjD6SXXXFEk8SEvtGPv9B7AQYFALUgDM6YRwaUWel
And also found out the team had been training and acclimatizing at Dharamshala in northern India since before the New Year :-)
Anyways, the ICC had an empty list for Thailand until just before the Namibia match started, when they switched to listing their most recent line-up, including the retired players, before finally showing the correct current line up when they finally started carrying the live score, several overs into the match; things didn't exactly start well for Thailand with Namibia getting 11 runs in the first over bowled by Phannita Maya, including a wide from the first delivery, though Thailand eventually stabilized and held Namibia to 107 runs, still Namibia's highest score against Thailand (though not officially, since warmups are never counted for official stats)
Thailand's opening partnership in response was Natthakan Chantham and teenager Aphisara Suwanchonrathi, and Thailand reached 47 runs before the latter was bowled out... Of these, "only" 31 came off their bats (12 from Aphisara, 19 from Natthakan), with Victoria Hamunyela chipping in 7 wides in a single over out of Thailand's 15 (thus also more than doubling the length of that over LOL.)
https://www.facebook.com/100092408662192/posts/most-wides-7-by-a-bowler-in-a-t20i-over-ever-joint-most-extras-given-by-a-bowler/796302206793394/
Also the second time in a month's time that someone bowled 7 wides in an international T20 over LOL.
Two of Namibia's other bowlers also conceded 10+ runs from a single over as well, one of them Leigh-Marie Visser (who had conceded 16 from a single over in their last meeting; this time she conceded "only" 11, got Natthakan's wicket, and FWIW didn't concede any extras)
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/samoan-darius-visser-breaks-t20i-batting-records-with-39-runs-in-one-over-1448069
Speaking of people named Visser and high-scoring overs, check out this 2024 item from Samoa :-)
Thailand managed to equal the Namibia total at the end of 16 overs, before hitting the winner, a boundary, 3 balls later; somewhat surprisingly, the Player of the Match was actually from the Namibia side, with Yasmeen Khan claiming the honors from her batting with a 54-run effort, and definitely not her bowling (she was the other Namibia bowler who conceded double digit runs in a single over, LOL) The ball-by-ball came in fits and starts, with results sometimes stopping for several minutes at a time (despite no hint of rain) before coming in at a rate of like 30 seconds per over; Cricket Ireland also had a warmup today (against hosts Nepal, winning 200-101) and their live blog had to apologize for their live score pausing due to wi-fi issues, and having to post the live score there instead :-\ In other results, Bangladesh beat the Dutch 151-125, PNG beat the Zims 131-120, and rather surprisingly, USA chased down Scotland's 149 with 7 balls to spare (!) (their best score, and first win against Scotland obviously, though again not officially)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1342957754537310&set=pb.100064692940666.-2207520000&type=3
The Cricket Association of Thailand Facebook finally announced the official line up after the warm-up match, with a brand new name in the list: Thanrada Seesawan, turning 16 in a few months (she didn't see any action against the Namibs, though)
https://cricclubs.com/TC/viewPlayer.do?playerId=2749206&clubId=14179
Domestically, she's batted 30 T20 innings since 2023 (playing for Nan province), though she's really come into her own last year if her batting averages are of any indication
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qclran/comment/nzj4aid/
In response on Reddit, CarnivalSorts reckons: "I think they'll make the Super Six with little issue but they're right on the edge of qualifying for me. Ireland, Bangladesh and Scotland should be fine, then a big fight between Thailand and Netherlands for the last spot" Which sounds about right to me :-) (And Thailand and Netherlands play in the same group, so qualification might effectively be decided there, and conveniently enough, it's on the last match day of the groups)
https://nitter.net/Emerging98/status/2011707709121601902#m
CzarSportz (prominent Twitter account for Associate cricket news) was critical that Thailand and Scotland were not getting the same opportunities to play better opposition that the Zims were by playing in the next Women's Championship cycle (though surprisingly, no mention of Harare 2021 and how much of a inflection point the cancellation was for Associates :-\): "The whole scenario of these 2 teams to keep playing fellow Associates year long is helping other Associates elevate their performances against these 2, not themselves." (The lone reply suggested, as always, giving them their own second-level league)
On to warmup 2, against full member Bangladesh:
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=10;filter=advanced;opposition=4240;orderby=team_score;team=4242;template=results;type=team;view=innings
We've never beaten Bangladesh in T20s, and our only win in ODIs was a) on Duckworth-Lewis score, b) at Harare 2021, and rendered pointless by the tournament's cancellation, and c) was not technically an ODI at the time of competition (long story)... Based on our post-pandemic results (2022 T20 Qualifiers [semifinals to decide qualification]: 113-102, despite a 64 from Natthakan, and 39 in the last 3 overs; 2022 Asia Cup: 88-82, chased down in 70 balls; 2024 Asia Cup: 100-96, chased down with 15 balls to spare), realistically, we should hope to bat out our overs, make at least 90 against them, and have our score last at least 100 balls (either score more in our overs than Bangladesh's score at 100 balls, or have Bangladesh take 100 balls up to chase)
Well, mission accomplished on all three fronts: We did bat out our overs (with the loss of 7 wickets), set a new (unofficial) high against Bangladesh with 115 (including a half century from wicketkeeper Nannapat Koncharoenkai), whereas Bangladesh was at 112 after 100 balls, though they got to 149 from their overs thanks to three maximums in the last 7 balls
That said, stalwart Natthakan only managed 7 from 12 balls, and 5 of our 7 bowlers had an economy rate of higher than 6 (i.e. 1 run per ball) One of the other two, Onnicha Kamchomphu, was exactly at 6, and the other was... Phannita Maya? Really? She conceded 19 from her 2 overs against Namibia for a 9.5 rate, but only conceded 7 in her 2 overs against Bangladesh for a 3.5 rate... Maybe it's something about the Mulpani pitch that favors her style, I dunno... Anyways, the Association's Facebook put their spin (pun not intended) on the result as "A valuable hit-out against Bangladesh Women"
In other results, the Dutch comfortably beat Namibia 201-115 (though the Dutch got hat-tricked by the Namibs' Jurriene Diergaardt), the USA won their match against Nepal, chasing down their 136 with 5 balls left, Scotland chased down PNG's 111 in exactly 13 overs, and Ireland chased down the Zims' 125 with one over to spare... It just so happens that Thailand and Netherlands both warmed up against the same two opponents, but the Bangladesh results can be more easily and directly compared since both teams batted second; Netherlands lost by 8 fewer runs, and managed to bat in 10 more runs than Thailand, and managed to have 3 bowlers out of 7 below 6.0 economy rate; so it'll be interesting to see what approach Thailand will take against Netherlands and how effective it'll be
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=10;opposition=4242;orderby=batting_average;team=2461;template=results;type=batting
Based on batting averages against Thailand, the ones we'll need to figure out how to get out ASAP are Sterre Kalis, Heather Siegers, and Babette de Leede... And for good measure, Phebe Molkenboer, since her best innings against Thailand was the game in Nepal that the Dutch won
On to the qualifiers now, with the first match against Nepal, at Tribhuvan Uni... Their previous encounter was on Thailand's home soil at the Asian qualifier and was a comfy win for Thailand, but the three matches before that were on this exact ground in the 2025 Nepal Tri-Series, and while those were also all wins for Thailand, two of them were rather cutting it close, winning by 5 runs in one match and taking 19 overs to chase down Nepal's total in another... OTOH, Nepal had a 5 match tour to Malaysia in October, and only squeaked by 3-2
I had a quick look-in as Nepal batted first and reached 11 overs, and noticed that they had 71 runs on the board with just one wicket; in comparison Nepal's highest score against Thailand had been 101, twice at home during the aforementioned Tri-Series... That said, the main reason they were above one run a ball at that point was Samjhana Kadhka scoring 26 off of 11 balls (with 6 boundaries, so all but 2 runs from those), and Thippatcha had already taken her wicket with a catch by captain Naruemol Chaiwai in the 6th over... I had another look-in near the end if Nepal's innings, where Rubina Chhetry hit a maximum in the 17th over to surpass their previous 101 high, then again in the 18th, before getting stumped by Nannapat for 17 after 10 runs with Nepal at 115, before Nepal finished with 122 all-out, slightly better than one-a-ball, entirely due to Samjhana and Rubina's contributions, as the only players to post a better than 100 strike rate (which also means one-a-ball)
In response, Thailand opened with its new regular opening pairing of Natthakan and Aphisara, and managed an opening partnership of 66 runs over a shade over 9 overs before Aphisara was bowled by Sita Magar for 28... Next up was Nannapat Koncharoenkai, and both she and Natthakan continued to bring in the runs for Thailand at a steady rate, passing 100 midway through the 15th over, before Nannapat was LBW'd out by Sita for 32 midway through the 16th over at 113, with Thailand needing just 10 more runs to chase down Nepal, and after a couple singles between Natthakan and Naruemol, Natthakan smacked consecutive boundaries to reach a half-century for herself, then the win for the team, with Thailand's 125 their second-highest total against Nepal, and highest away from home... Meanwhile, in the other match of the same group, the Dutch beat Thailand's next opponent, Zimbabwe, 122-100, despite being all out after 19 overs (and a 5-fer from Christabel Chatonzwa) (Also, Ireland over PNG and Bangladesh over USA in the other group)
The Lady Chevrons actually have a slight edge record-wise against Thailand (5-4), but they hadn't met since 2023, where Natthakan scored her last half-century against a full member (they also beat Thailand twice the last time they met in a T20 Qualifier)
Their record since the 2023 meeting: 20-19-1 (against non-Africans: 6-16-1, including 9 losses against their only full-member opponent Ireland)
Last year's record: 7-6 (against non-Africans: 2-6, with 3 losses against Ireland)
They're getting a Women's Championship slot this cycle though, as a cancellation of a certain qualifier (held on their soil, I might add) continues to cast a shadow on the figurative pavement :-\
It was a real nail-biter at Mulpani, even to this live-score-only viewer... Thailand lost their opening wicket on the 2nd ball, with Aphisara being caught by Audrey Mazvishaya; however, Nannapat managed to bring some sense of stability for the next 7 overs and a bit until the Zims got Natthakan's wicket for 26 runs with Thailand at 49... Not too quickly, but somewhat shorter than some might have preferred or hoped :-\ Nonetheless, Nannapat kept going as she and the other players helped bring the score up to 102 with a half-century of her own before being run out in the 18th over (one of 3 wickets that over) Thailand eventually finished on 115 runs, with Suleeporn Laomi and Onnicha Kamchomphu stealing an extra run off the last ball after an overthrow from the infield LOL. (Saw this in the video highlights after the fact, of course)
Thailand managed to get off to a decent defensive start by running out Beloved Biza before she could even get an at-bat, and although the opener Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano managed 19 runs off 18 balls (all but one from boundaries and a maximum), she also got run out one ball shy of 5 overs... Thailand's bowlers managed to tamp down the Lady Chevrons' run rate over the next 5 overs, getting them to 42 at the drinks break (Thailand had 61) Zims came out of the break with 17 and 10 run overs to put them above Thailand on the curve, and from that point Thailand needed every dot-ball, wicket, and defensive stop they could get their hands on... Whereas the Zims had limited Thailand to 14 runs over the last 3 overs, Thailand would then limit the Lady Chevrons to 12 between the 16th to 18th overs (including back-to-back wickets, by Thipatcha of course :-)), with Josephine Nkomo (somewhat decent batter) and Nyasha Gwanzura (not so much) at the crease needing 18 runs from the last two overs, but a boundary from Nyasha on the last ball of the 19th put things in reach for the Lady Chevrons, with them needing "only" 8 runs to tie from the last over, and the team nabbing two doubles and three singles from the first 5 balls set things up for the big finale...
...which to this live-score-only viewer, it took forever for the update to show up, and I was dreading a boundary or even a double from Nyasha, and even a single would force a Super Over ("extra innings", cricket style) but thankfully, it came up a run out for Nyasha, and a one-run win for Thailand, with that "stolen" run making the difference... and watching the video of that last ball, it's quite a remarkable fielding and run-out from Phannita Maya :-)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qhnogl/comment/o0lc0zw/
"After this match, we'll likely get another reason to mock the ICC for letting Zimbabwe into the Women's Championship over associates like Thailand."
Regardless of result, there'd probably be mocking aplenty anyhow, even if the irony seems lost on everyone that it was the cancellation of 2021 ODI qualifiers on their soil that kept Associates (read Thailand) from making it through to the Women's Championship, and now they're going to get a slot on the same technicality that gave Ireland a slot instead of having them play Thailand for it :-\ (they were effectively out of the 2021 qualifiers at the point it was abandoned given how difficult it would have been for them to qualify for the Super 6's from that point, and they didn't play the 2025 event either)
If I were part of the support staff for the Thailand women's cricket team or whatever, I probably would have recommended the team to head over to Tribhuvan in the afternoon (or maybe send other support staff or whatever there in the first place, since the former would have been quite a to-do given it's about 15 kilos in traffic, and there was an hour or so between the matches) to scope out both of our remaining opponents playing each other :-) Netherlands managed 157 in their overs, buoyed by Sterre Kalis' 87; Scotland only managed 150 in response despite both Kaths (Fraser and Bryce) putting up 40-run efforts (with Heather Siegers shutting the Scots down in the final over), giving the Dutch the win, and giving them a good chance of making the next round... Thailand would have plenty of time to study the figurative tapes as well, since the next match day is a bye day for them :-)
(In other results: Namibia fell to the US, with the Americans (mostly of South Asian descent, based on the names) chasing down 144 with 4 balls to spare, while Bangladesh beat PNG 168-138)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qh2xou/fixtures_for_the_acc_womens_asia_cup_rising_stars/
https://twitter.com/ACCMedia1/status/2013147289490235721#m
And while looking around Reddit for reactions (including the above), I found out that the ACC are going ahead with their Women's Emerging Cup after all, to be held in February... albeit under a new name, Women's Asia Cup Rising Stars, and held in the originally reported venue of Bangkok :-) (That said, it probably would have done more good for the emerging nations before the qualifiers)
While we're waiting for the next game, the Association Facebook page announced the U19 Women's Super League, and since the senior team was over in Nepal, teams consisted mostly of, shall we say, up-and-comers, with a handful of players with national U19 team experience (the schedule)
https://cricclubs.com/TC/viewPlayer.do?playerId=3094983&clubId=14179
A quick pull up of one of the players with national team experience shows that her only international experience before the U19 Qualifiers was a series of matches with Malaysia a month earlier, listed as two separate series; which speaks to the importance of international experience (indeed, almost 6 years ago, during the T20 World Cup, The Cricketer magazine wrote that "Natthakan Chant[h]am's sparkling half-century shows what Thailand can do with exposure and experience"... just before Covid essentially wiped out that whole year like rain had wiped out the match she made that performance in, then also stopped Thailand from qualifying for the Women's Championship; I know I've been banging on that old drum a lot, but given how consequential that turn of events was and has continued to be, can you really blame me for that?) What I'm saying is that Thailand needs to give their young-uns some game time with better international opponents than Malaysia if they want to keep some semblance of a talent pipeline...
So anyways, Thailand's bye day, with Nepal playing the Dutch in the morning at Tribhuvan, and the Scots playing the Zims at Mulpani in the afternoon, and it'd probably behoove Thailand to watch those games and study their moves... Hopefully they did so, but one thing I'd also expect them to do was to at least acknowledge the birthday of not just one, but TWO of their players, as both Sunida Chaturongrattana (didn't bat, but had the best bowling economy against the Zims :-)) and Suleeporn Laomi (had 9 runs at the tail end of Thailand's innings), were born on 22 January 6 years apart (Laomi in '98, Chaturongrattana in '04)
Anyways, results: The Dutch pipped Nepal by 2 runs 140-138, while the Scots had a comfy win over the Lady Chevrons, chasing down the Zims' 101 in under 14 overs (this actually gives them a better NRR than the two teams ahead of them, the Dutch and the Thais; it's also the lowest winning score so far, though our win over the Zims is the lowest defended winning score)... In the other group, Ireland beat the US 154-138, while Bangladesh bundled Namibia all-out on their way to a 144-64 win :-) So we can safely put Bangladesh and Netherlands through to the Super 6's, but it'll take a little computational help to sort out possibilities for the remaining teams... So we'll just consider Thailand's group B, starting with the teams with the least chance (as a reminder, the remaining games are SCO-THA and NEP-ZIM on Saturday, and NEP-SCO and NED-THA on Monday)
- Zimbabwe: Obviously need to win their last match against Nepal, plus also need Thailand and Nepal to beat Scotland by enough to put the NRR in their favor
- Nepal: Winning both matches would give them a good chance, with NRR coming into play in the case of Scots beating the Thais; at the very least a win over Scotland is necessary, though that would also require a Thai win over the Scots, as well as favorable NRR
Onto the teams that have a good chance of getting through:
- Thailand: The only case that would see them out is them losing both games (given what our opponents have been doing in the first few matches, not actually that far beyond the realm of possibility, to be fair) and then Nepal winning both games, and then NRR has to be in both Scotland and Nepal's favor (at a cursory check, looks like in most cases Thailand will carry over whatever points they earn from the last two matches, though not necessary directly from those matches; the only way it wouldn't be the case is if Nepal won both games, Thailand lost both games, and both teams had a better NRR than Scotland, which would then give Thailand two points carried over from the win over Nepal)
- Scotland: The only cases that would put the Scots out all involve Nepal winning both matches; a loss to Thailand would then put them out in wins alone, whereas a win over the Thais would require NRR to be considered
- Netherlands: Already through with at least two points carried over; the only question is whether they'll be first or second, and how many points they'll carry over
Wow, that was a lot to explain, but extending that to include NRR calculations, as well as how the Super 6's might play out, would almost feel like ESPN anchors Dan Patrick and Kenny Mayne in this sort-of-classic scene from a sort-of-forgotten sports spoof (which also gave us this awesome A-Ha cover... well, they already covered it a few years earlier and just made a new version of the video, but enough with that digression); thankfully, we won't need to worry about Natthakan and friends sack-racing the Bryce sisters LOL.
So yeah, it's a pretty complicated picture, so let's wait to see match day 4 clear things up... First though, a quick look at Weather Underground's forecast for the next week suggests that the two morning matches of the first Super 6's match day might get wiped out by rain, and the afternoon match is looking doubtful as well... Based on the notation for the schedule, it's likely we'd be scheduled to face one of the full members in whichever of those matches we end up in, and a rain-out would actually be beneficial for us since we'd steal a point from our opposition (welcome back 2022 Asia Cup LOL)
Match day 4, with Scotland at Tribhuvan Uni... Last time the teams met in a T20 Qualifier, the Scots held the Thais to 99, with Naruemol topping out at 36, before chasing it down under 18 overs to make it to the semis; however, Natthakan was not part of the team that played that qualifier, so it'll be interesting to see her performance, as Thailand will surely be banking on her (and the other Na's, to be fair) to last long enough to make a good impact
And it turns out Natthakan didn't make much of an impact at all, being dismissed on a run out for 1(!) after just 7 balls (Thailand actually scored more from extras with her at the striker's end than from the bat, with 2 wides), after losing Aphisara on the first ball of the innings, and by drinks the team was at 39 for 3... To their credit, they managed to recover to post some semblance of a decent score, with Thailand going for 29 runs in the last two overs to post a total of 118 for 6, with 73(!) of that coming from captain Naruemol (including consecutive maximums to start the last over!)
(It was a particularly cheap run out for Natthakan, I might add: the video highlights suggest that she started a run after getting the hit and had gotten most of the way to the other end, whereas Nannapat stayed put, so hopefully Natthakan has learnt her lesson and won't go out that cheaply against the Dutch)
Scotland lost Darcey Carter 3 balls in for a duck from a runout, and captain Kathryn Bryce only managed 8 runs from two boundaries before being bowled by Thipatcha, but that was the extent of the bad news for the Scots, as the other Kath, Fraser put up 41 from 31 balls, and the other Bryce, Sarah chipped in 52, including a game winning maximum before the end of over 15, beating Thailand quicker than in '24 despite having a bigger target :-\ Scotland's win over the Thais now puts them in 2nd place on NRR above Thailand, while in other results, PNG beat Namibia, chasing down 122 with 2 balls to spare, Bangladesh beat Ireland 153-144 in the group A battle of the full members, and Nepal beat the Zims, chasing down 129 with 3 balls to spare, ensuring a last-place for the lone full member of group B (go figure)
And in other good news for Scotland, their men's team has been entered into the Men's T20 World Cup in February as a replacement for Bangladesh due to Bangladesh's concerns about playing in India
Back to the women: With the first four match days (and Zimbabwe, LOL) out of the way, the Super 6's picture is now starting to emerge... (with apologies to the above Dan and Kenny scene) Starting with Thailand's group B:
- The Dutch already have two points carried over, and a win over the Thais would give them 4; a loss combined with a win for Scotland over Nepal would knock them into second (and possibly 3rd on NRR, more anon)
- Scotland would have to lose to Nepal by a lot (and likely needing a large Thai loss as well) to miss the next round, while any win over Nepal with a Dutch loss would put them in first; if the Scots were to make the next round, they'd have two points in all cases
- A Thailand win over the Dutch would give them 2 points carried over (which Thailand is probably banking on getting to improve their chances at making it through), and a win by at least 22 runs batting first, or chasing in 100 balls batting second (roughly) would put them over the Dutch in rankings; a big enough loss to the Dutch and a big enough win for Nepal would have Nepal pip Thailand to the next round
- Nepal would need to beat Scotland, and would also need a Dutch win by enough runs to overturn the NRR
The picture is much easier for group A:
- Bangladesh have finished their games, and they'll have four points carried over regardless of anything
- Ireland are playing Namibia, and their NRR is far ahead of USA and PNG, so that's probably 2nd place all sewn up, with two points carried over
- The USA and PNG are facing each other, and whoever wins will finish 3rd for a spot in the Super 6's
- Even if the Namibs were to beat the Irish, they'd only finish 4th at most, because they could only overtake the loser of USA-PNG
Given that group rankings will be used to determine match schedules, a second place for Thailand would have them play Ireland, Bangladesh, and the winner of PNG/USA in that order, while third place would have them play Bangladesh, PNG/USA winner, then Ireland; in light of the washout possibility for the first match, the second arrangement would be slightly more favorable (First place team would have PNG/USA winner, then Ireland and Bangladesh, though the first match is in the afternoon rather than the morning)
Final group match day, against the Netherlands at Mulpani, in the afternoon... Thailand had won 10 of their 13 meetings in history, but their most recent defeat was last year in the Nepal Tri-series (though that was at Tribhuvan Uni) They last met at a T20 qualifier in 2019, in which Natthakan and Naruemol raced out to 76 in a shortened 9-over match, before Thailand held the Dutch to 44; the Dutch did beat Thailand in warmups for the 2024 qualifier, but they needed a Super Over to win, and warmups don't count for official stats
The morning matches saw wins for Scotland over Nepal 140-68 (putting the Scots through with 2 points) and in a real surprise, USA with their first ever win over PNG, chasing down 110 in 18 overs (assisted by a 17-run opening over, putting them in the next round at their opponents' expense) So anyways, Thailand managed to get out Heather Siegers, Phebe Molkenboer (star of their last win in a meaningful match-up), and Sterre Kalis out for ducks (0's in cricket parlance; Phebe's was a first-ball wicket even) though captain Babette de Leede still managed to knock in 47 from as many balls, with decent supporting turns from Robine Rijke, Frederique Overdijk, and Iris Zwilling eventually getting the Dutch to 107 for 8, which sounds perfectly chaseable, right? (Since the pandemic, Thailand had never not successfully chased down the Dutch when batting second) Well, the Dutch also got Aphisara and Nannapat's wickets for ducks and although Natthakan hit several boundaries, she eventually was bowled out for 26, while Naruemol chipped in another 33 before being caught by Babette... With only 4 of Thailand's batters making it past 2 (the others being Suleeporn Laomi for 13 and Onnicha Kamchomphu for 10), the Dutch comfortably defended their 107 by 17 runs (player of the match: Isabel Van Der Woning, who got 4 wickets for 14 runs, including that of Natthakan; despite a lack of batting action, the unretired Heather Siegers still managed to be useful, getting 2 wickets on the bowling end)... Thailand still made the the Super 6's as a result of the Scot win, but it now feels more a case of "getting it over with" rather than having any real shot of qualification (they'd have to win through their matches to have any shot [even taking into account the chance of a rain out against Bangladesh], and even then, their NRR is quite far behind their closest rivals)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qn7mca/comment/o1skke1/
Phoneix150 said on Reddit: "Unfortunately the Thai girls have regressed since those heady days 5-6 years ago" (FWIW, I think it's more other teams catching up than Thailand coming down), and of course, Dizzydan015 cites that they "should have been at the 2022 ODI World Cup and also got denied playing in the women's championship due to being associates" (Gee, ya think there might be a correlation there? Even if I don't think they would've beaten Sri Lanka and Windies at Harare 2021 to make that World Cup; to me, all the importance would've been on the game against Ireland to decide the Women's Championship slot) That they missed both opportunities at the same time despite Harare 2021 being specifically designed to minimize the chances of that, and that the same Women's Championship opportunity did not come up again at Lahore 2025, makes it all the harder to swallow (there's that old drum beaten yet again, and get ready for me to beat it some more :-\) K99-94 also added: "I remember their game in T20 WC against Pak..felt so bad for them (That was the rain-out with Natthakan's half-century, and I should also mention that this was also Thailand's highest-ever T20 score at the time, 150 - SB) no new talent coming..they'll likely end up where their men's team is" That oft-quoted line about "It might have been" might very well have been written about Thailand's women cricket: Besides Covid keeping Thailand off the field for more than year (and then their first games back being preparation for Harare 2021), getting that win over Pakistan in 2020 not only would've been a showcase win for the ages (especially compared to the 2022 win at the regional Asia Cup hardly causing a blip in the grand scheme of things), it also likely would've meant not having to play the qualifiers in '22, while parlaying their win over Bangladesh at Harare 2021 to at least a Women's Championship slot would've meant more opportunity for Thailand to play quality opposition and thus get better/remain competitive with other full members, as well as more motivation for Thailand to improve their talent pipeline... At worst, it would've delayed their regression, while at best, well, I wouldn't get too optimistic, but maybe they'd have a few finals wins under their belt by now; more importantly, it would've shut out their most likely rivals for that last spot, Ireland, from getting where they are now (or, to quote a somewhat-less-quoted corollary to the oft-quoted line: "It is, but hadn't ought to be")... Speaking of whom, the Irish chased down Namibia's own 107 for 8 in just over 14 overs to solidify their 2nd place in group A
Of course, frequent Twitter commenters Bertus de Jong and hypocaust had their things to say about the Lady Chevrons of Zimbabwe getting a Women's Championship slot, with hypo specifically adding "the match experience will be invaluable going forward", though they don't mention Thailand at any point... Whereas Phoneix150 on Reddit thought that "ICC should hang their heads in shame" about taking away Thailand's big opportunity for such experience on a technicality and giving it to arguably their closest rivals without having them playing each other for it, hypocaust responded to another user suggesting that there should be a League 2 for women and more emerging trophy matches by saying "That would contravene the ICC's guiding principles - How can an anonymous suit make short-term personal gain from this?" "Meaning of this principle?" "Greed and open corruption above all else." "Unfortunate to hear that!!"
Anyways, here's the Super 6's picture as far as I understand it:
- Bangladesh: 4 points, +0.750 NRR (311 runs / 40 overs for, 281 runs / 40 overs against)
- Netherlands: 4 points, +0.600 NRR (264 runs / 40 overs for, 240 runs / 40 overs against)
- Scotland: 2 points, +1.029 NRR (274 runs / 34.4 overs for, 275 runs / 40 overs against)
- Ireland: 2 points, +0.175 NRR (298 runs / 40 overs for, 291 runs / 40 overs against)
- USA: 0 points, -0.925 NRR (275 runs / 40 overs for, 312 runs / 40 overs against)
- Thailand: 0 points, -1.463 NRR (208 runs / 40 overs for, 231 runs / 34.4 overs against)
It'll probably be Thailand vs the US to avoid last place in the Super 6's, with the other matches merely determining placement amongst the qualifiers; the matches subject to rain-out are Scotland vs Ireland (arguably the closest match-up) and Bangladesh vs Thailand, with the Dutch playing the USA in the afternoon also potentially affected; taking those into account, here's how I reckon the Super 6's should finish up:
- Bangladesh: 9 points (rain-out against Thailand, wins over Scotland and Netherlands)
- Ireland: 7 points (rain-out against Scotland, wins over Netherlands and Thailand)
- Netherlands: 5 or 6 points (either win over US or rain-out, losses to Ireland and Bangladesh)
- Scotland: 5 points (rain-out against Ireland, loss to Bangladesh, win over US)
- Thailand: 3 points (rain-out against Bangladesh, win over US, loss to Ireland)
- USA: 0 or 1 points (either loss to Netherlands or rain-out, losses to Thailand and Scotland)
It'd take heavy wins against the USA and Ireland just to give Thailand a chance, and it still would've been a big to-do, even before Ireland were given the slot in the Women's Championship :-\ And based on the US beating Scotland in the warm-ups, we shouldn't take USA not getting any Super 6's wins for granted either :-\ (In fact, more about that anon)
During the break day, I decided to check out the Cricket Association of Thailand's CricClubs page, and found out that in addition to the U19 Women's Super League, there was also the Chanthaburi Championship, in both U12 and U18 categories for boys and girls, as well as a Men's Super League coming up... The Chanthaburi U12 games, as well as U18 girls, are all being contested by schools from within Chanthaburi province, and mostly all within Soi Dao district, where the venue, Soi Dao Wittaya school, is based... Three of the four U18 boys' teams are apparently not school-based, while the other is the hosts themselves (and a quick check of the scorecards and ball-by-balls suggest there's the usual bowling issues, and only penalizing bad deliveries with extra runs) (The schedule for the Men's Super League was posted after the tourney)
Meanwhile, I took a look at the Netherlands and Scotland and their women's cricket situations: Netherlands have competitions in the 20-over and longer categories (Vrouwen T20, and the two-division Vrouwen Topklasse [40 overs] and Hoofdklasse [30 overs], respectively), while Scotland has a Women's Premier League (not to be confused with India's), plus a T20 Cup (and of course, they're a quick hop from full members England and Ireland as well :-)) Thailand does have some semblance of domestic competition, but the matches are usually held at a single ground (though TBF, the 2025 Men's U19 league used both Terdthai and AIT) and feel more like glorified training camp competitions to me; while the Chanthaburi Championship is contested amongst a single district's schools, so what about other provinces (or for that matter, even schools from other districts in Chanthaburi?) Of course, this circles right back to the general lack of suitable grounds in the country (ESPNCricInfo lists 56 grounds in the Netherlands, and 39 in Scotland, though I'd suspect every major town in Scotland has at least one ground; Thailand has just 5 listed, and Soi Dao is not counted among them)
On the day before the first round of the Super 6's, I took another check at the Weather Underground forecast, and Kathmandu's forecast was downgraded from morning rain to just cloudy, which could mean that the potential rain-outs could go ahead, but that doesn't really change the expected calculus significantly:
- Bangladesh: 10 points (wins over all the teams)
- Ireland: 6 or 8 points (Scotland pending, wins over Netherlands and Thailand)
- Netherlands: 6 points (win over US, losses to Ireland and Bangladesh)
- Scotland: 4 or 6 points (Ireland pending, loss to Bangladesh, win over US)
- Thailand: 2 points (loss to Bangladesh, win over US, loss to Ireland)
- USA: 0 points (losses to all the teams)
Under this consideration, Thailand would need Scotland to lose to both Ireland and Bangladesh (the bigger the better of course), then beat Ireland themselves (or Bangladesh, but I've already noted that has never happened), to have a chance of getting into 4th on NRR (Or Ireland, with a lower NRR, could be beaten by either the Scots or Dutch, but Thailand would still need to beat Ireland; if Ireland somehow lost to both other teams, there'd be no need to consider NRR)
Super 6's day 1: Both morning games went the whole 20 overs on both sides, with the Scots beating the Irish 160-121, once again showing the Irish maybe "hadn't ought to be" in the Women's Championship (at least, not on the technicality that got them in in the first place), and Bangladesh beating Thailand yet again, 165-126 (same size of margin as the other game) The only bright spots for Thailand were getting a first-ball wicket from opener Dilara Akter, and then Sharmin Akhter's wicket before 2 overs were up; otherwise, Juairiya Ferdous and Sobhana Mostary's half-centuries, plus a partnership that lasted just under 14 overs guided them home... Meanwhile, Thailand's opener, Suwanan Khiaoto this time rather than Aphisara, also fell to a first-ball wicket of her own, while the best performance at the bat from Thailand was Natthakan (of course), and while she did not go out cheaply, she did end up just short of a half-century (46) before she was caught by Dilara Akter; other notable turns were by the other Na's Nannapat and Naruemol, with 29 and 30 respectively (and 126 is also a new high against Bangladesh; gotta take what positives we can get, even if it's pretty much the case that their large innings gave them leeway to allow us to get that high)
Meanwhile, in the afternoon, Netherlands-USA ended up being shortened due to rain, go figure... The US went first and raced out to 129/7, just over run-a-ball, with Gargi Bhogle and Isani Vaghela contributing more than half of those runs, whereas in response, the Dutch managed to get to 90/2 after 12 overs (with a bit more than half from Phebe Molkenboer, and with 46 not out, she probably would've loved another over or two to get the half-century) before rain ended the game, with the Dutch being credited with a 21 run win, and the US being credited for 69 runs for NRR purposes... And as it turns out, alongside Bangladesh, the Dutch have now qualified for their first ever Women's T20 World Cup (with a mention of Thailand's screwjob in the Reddit post announcing this)
(Ironically, while these Super 6's were being played, another ICC tournament was being held in Harare, and also having its Super 6's; safe to say Thailand isn't qualifying for that tournament anytime soon)
So while we're now expecting a 3 way tie for 2-4th with 6 points, I decided to do some quick calculations to determine by how much Thailand would have to beat Ireland to overtake their NRR, assuming a) Ireland beat the Netherlands batting first, b) Thailand beat the US batting first, and c) Thailand scored 120 against the Irish batting first:
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 20: at least 24 runs
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 40: at least 15 runs
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 20: at least 29 runs
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 40: at least 20 runs
In a nutshell, roughly 29 - (Thai margin-Irish margin)/2 runs
I also decided to determine how quick we'd have to chase down 120 if we batted second (assuming we got 121):
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 20: 94 balls
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 40: 105 balls
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 20: 88 balls
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 40: 99 balls
Roughly 88 + (Thai margin-Irish margin)*55% balls, so in either case, we'd better trounce the US and hope Irish don't beat the Dutch by too much (preferably, at all, so that the NRR wouldn't matter, and "simply" beating Ireland would suffice) It would be a whole different kettle of fish with either Irish or Thais batting second and chasing their opponents in their 2nd Super 6 matches, so I decided to wait to see how (if) I'd have to adjust the calculations... Turns out I didn't have to deal with this, but more on that in a bit (spoiler alert: :-\)
Super 6's match day 2: The morning saw the already-through Bangladesh taking on the Scots, and the Irish taking on the already-through Dutch... Bangladesh amassed a 191 run innings on the back of captain Nigar Sultana (56) and Sobhana Mostary (47), and after a first-ball wicket for Darcey Carter in response, Scotland only managed 101 in response for a 90-run loss... but the Irish had that margin beat: After making a 143-run innings with star turns from Amy Hunter (34) and Leah Paul (39), they then shut down the Dutch after a promising 9-run first over, eventually bundling them out for 45 runs, for a 98-run win (!) These wins are pretty much emblematic of how big the gulf is between even the best Associates and the lower-tier full-members (well, barring Ireland and Scotland)
The afternoon was US v. Thailand (meeting for the third time ever, all at T20 Global Qualifiers), and Dizzydan015 and K99-94 on Reddit had it like this: "Loser of this game is eliminated" "Winner will be eliminated too😃 in 2 days" LOL. (First part is correct, more on the second part anon)
The US put up a 128-run innings, surpassing their previous best against Thailand of 79 in 2022 (last time around they got only 54, and were surpassed with 56 in 56 balls) Presumably Thailand would have been relying on the Na's to chase it down, but Natthakan got LBW'd out after just one boundary and 3 balls, and reserve player Nannaphat Chaihan, seeing her first action since Dec 2024, was bowled out for a duck in 7 balls... Nannapat Koncharoenkai and Naruemol Chaiwai managed to put 59 for their efforts (28 and 31 respectively), but they would go all out in 19 overs with 100 runs, giving the US their second first-ever win over another nation in these qualifiers (after PNG in the groups) So Thailand's final game against Ireland will truly be a matter of "getting it over with", since the best they can get is 5th, after which they should have a long hard look at themselves :-\ (Well, the Asia Cup Rising Stars tournament starts a week after the qualifiers, but you get the idea)
(Of course Wikipedia has an article about cric in the states, and to paraphrase the meme, if I had a nickel every time a "foreign" sport rose in prominence in the states after hosting a World Cup for it, I'd have two nickels; okay, cric is still somewhat marginal there, and their women's national team is still mainly of south Asian descent, but still, there's a whole proper domestic league, albeit just men's, while the women's team is derived from a more elaborate pathway than Thailand)
Just for fun though, I calculated how much the US would have to beat the Scots by, to overtake them for the last qualification spot... and it turns out to be lower than the 0.24 NRR difference makes it look:
- Batting first and scoring 120: At least 9 runs
- Batting first and chasing 120: With at least 7 balls to spare
Hmm, interesting... As for Ireland, they'd have to lose by 66 runs (or be chased in under 63 balls) just to lower their NRR to 0, and it'd take a 30-run win by the US (or a sub-16-over chase) for them to get their NRR up to 0, and then Scotland would still have a worse NRR, so we can safely pencil them through to the finals
As for Thailand, looks like we might have to wait until the next expansion of the Cup, to 16 teams in 2030 (10 years removed from our previous) to make it in again :-\ Taking a look at the ESPNCricInfo page on our players (cutting out the ones who've already retired), Natthakan probably has a couple more campaigns left in her, and would be 34 at the time of the qualifiers for 2030, but captain Narumol would be 39, the same age Nattaya retired at, and Chanida Sutthiruang would be 36... That said, the next oldest players, Suleeporn Laomi and Onnicha Kamchomphu are the only other ones who would be on the older side of 30 (they're now 28, so will be 32 then); we still have 8 players listed under 26, and even the other retiree Rosenanee, at 26, would just be turning 30 by then
Final day of the tournament, and most of the teams already have their summer plans sorted out, but anyways, the morning games were Bangladesh-Netherlands, with Bangladesh chasing down the Dutch's total of 102 with more than 3 overs left, and Ireland-Thailand, with Ireland obliterating Thailand 121-59 (Naruemol topped for Thailand with 22, while Natthakan got 2 boundaries in her first 4 balls before being bowled out by the 5th, Thanrada Seesawan finally saw some action but only lasted 3 balls, and Suleeporn Laomi managed to get 4 Irish wickets, but in response, Arlene Kelly managed 4 of her own before the Thais were bowled out in a bit more than 16 overs), and Anu commenting on Reddit "It’s just sad to see Thailand losing this way", which, yeah, same (especially given that we'd of course beaten them the last time we met at a qualifiers, long before they got gifted their big break) When it comes to analysis of cricket results, sometimes it takes well-paid experts, but for these games, it literally is just a matter of "One team is in the Women's Championship and the other isn't", especially where Thailand and Ireland are concerned, given the circumstances of why (not-so-fun fact: Before Covid wiped out most international cricket in 2020, they were supposed to meet alongside Zimbabwe and the Netherlands for a 50-over quad-tournament in Thailand that April, before then playing the ODI World Cup qualifiers in July in Sri Lanka; given the intention to use that tourney to add teams to the Women's Championship, one has to wonder what the results would have been in that timeline) A quick look at ESPNCricInfo's stats page shows that during the last cycle, there were only 3 T20 losses by Women's Championship teams to teams outside the Championship: Two were Irish losses to Scotland (one on tour in Spain and the other at the last qualifiers), and the other was Thailand's sort-of-famous Asia Cup win over Pakistan, while in comparison, the incoming Zimbabwe lost to the UAE 5 times out of 8, Namibia 4 times out 10, Thailand 2 times out of 6, and once each to the Netherlands, USA and Vanuatu
(FWIW, during the previous Women's Championship cycle, the Irish lost 3 times [from 8 games] to Scotland, 3 times [from 4 games] to Thailand, and once [from 7 games] to the Netherlands, as well as 4 out of 5 games against Bangladesh; OTOH, Bangladesh did not lose any games against non-Championship teams other than that one loss to Ireland, so there's a better case for them being included)
The afternoon saw the tournament conclude pretty much as expected, with the Scots beating the US 178-137, with the US being bundled out in 19 overs (still the USA's highest official score against Scotland), so just as expected, the teams that had points carried over were exactly the teams who made it to the World Cup... As for Thailand, not only is the gulf between teams in and not in the Women's Championship getting wider, it also feels like other Associate teams are getting better, and unless Thailand starts getting serious about developing a proper cricket talent pipeline (even a US-style regional model be better than now), they're going to find it very difficult to get back to the World Cup again (and good luck with that "in a country where a Muay Thai right hook is more familiar than a batter's hook shot", as described by AFP's heartache article, and native awareness is probably a single digit percentage)... but first, let's see what comes of the ACC's Asia Cup Rising Stars tournament :-)
(ETA: Tom Grunshaw noted in his roundup of the qualifiers for Emerging Cricket that "Thailand's slide back into the pack becomes ever clearer," adding that their defeats [and arguably even the narrow win over the Zims] "showed a fragile batting line up dependent on three players. Naru[em]ol Chaiwai, Nannapat Koncharoenkai and Natthakam Chant[h]am all made the top-ten run scores [Naruemol was tops for the Thais with 205, 3rd most, while the other two finished 10th and 9th respectively, with 167 and 168 - SB], but at the same time the Thai side were bowled out in three out of seven matches." He also concluded that "Thailand's fielding performances, once the pride of the associate game, now look rusty as a lack of competitive cricket in recent years strangles progress", and that Zimbabwe's "inclusion in the upcoming ODI Women’s Championship looks increasingly ill-judged and unfair." Yep, sounds about right, and time to beat that old drum again :-\)
Previously on Howzat, Thailand went on a high performance camping trip to South Africa, and seemed to be putting themselves into a good position for the World Cup T20 Global qualifiers in Nepal, by winning the first-ever ICC Women's Emerging Nations Cup (there'll be a second this coming December) and then winning the SEA Games golds on a trot, all at home... until two of their veterans retired immediately after the SEA Games: Nattaya Boochatham, and Rosenanee Kanoh... Nattaya had just settled into playing the role of opening batter since Apr 2024, whereas Rosenanee had spent most of her career batting towards the bottom of the order (and hadn't even turned 27 yet, whereas Nattaya had just turned 39, so I can understand that; for comparison Natthakan Chantham was 29, turning 30 on New Year's) It remains to be seen who, if anyone, is coming to replace them, since, as demonstrated by our U19 results, we don't exactly have a robust talent pipeline :-\ (Though I'd hope that they could at least help mentor the next generation and/or spread the word about the sport's existence) Also of concern is that during the Emerging Nations Cup, Thailand lost to Papua New Guinea (part of the other group in the qualifiers, and likely to make the Super 6's) for the first time in history, and it had been PNG that Thailand defeated back in 2019 to make their only World Cup so far (since then, Thailand's been through A LOT, including having a chance for a steady schedule of games awarded to Ireland on a technicality)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1q47eq0/comment/nxr6bnz/
And speaking of Thailand being deprived of opportunities to play quality opposition due to circumstance, Redditor Anu9011 announced: "There will be a Women’s ACC Premier Cup in February which probably means the postponed Women’s Emerging Cup in the current cycle won’t happen. UAE, Malaysia, Thailand and Nepal women won’t get the opportunity to play against A-teams of the full members in Asia. A huge loss." (By A-teams, they actually mean second stringers below the "main" national team) This news came as a result of, from all places, the Cricket Association of Nepal's announcement of their 2026 cricket calendar, which proposes the Premiere Cup in February, then the Asia Cup in July... There hasn't been any other references to this elsewhere, and even the ACC Twitter doesn't make any mention of this, but given that the corresponding men's tournament will have another edition this year as well, wouldn't surprise me :-\ The previous Premier Cup had qualified the mentioned four teams for the Asia Cup proper in 2024 (originally they only would have put through the finalists, UAE and Malaysia) and was also supposed to have served as qualification for last year's Emerging Cup, which was always going to be the top four... So despite being in the initial line up for both editions of the Emerging Cup, Thailand has yet to actually play a match against full member second stringers :-\ (Well, except that time in 2023 where they played Pakistan and Windies' A-teams and lost both games) More on that anon, however...
https://www.facebook.com/CricketThailand.Thai/posts/pfbid02erGq5ZEhPKBdPrYtB5Fg8gaqcrhYFy1m9tXr1kSJgiwRzWRLyaR6hvt5y8B2Js76l
Internal celebration of the SEA Games win, plus giving out awards to outstanding players
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1q6c748/icc_womens_t20_world_cup_2026_qualifier_fixtures/
Schedule for the warm ups and qualifiers proper, with Thailand playing Namibia at Tribhuvan Uni on the 14th, then Bangladesh (gulp) at Mulpani on the 16th, and the qualifiers proper starting on the 18th :-) Also, no final after the Super 6's, so the format matches with the abandoned Harare 2021 tournament
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1q97xb3/dutch_handed_big_boost_as_heather_siegers_comes/
Interestingly enough, the Netherlands' Heather Siegers just came out of her (very brief) retirement to give the Dutch a better chance of qualifying at the Nepal qualifiers :-\ That said, CarnivalSorts still "definitely still fanc(ies) Thailand over them on the spinning wickets in Nepal" :-) Meanwhile, Thailand still hadn't announced their line up two days before the first warmup (with Zimbabwe the only other team to leave it so late), with comments under this post wondering what's taking them so long, and noting that the retired players were still listed on the ICC site
https://www.icc-cricket.com/tournaments/womens-cwc-qualifier-2025/videos/natthakan-chantham-thailand-s-cricketing-pioneer-icc-100-cricket
While looking up news, I found this interview with stalwart Natthakan Chantham held during the 2025 WODI World Cup qualifier :-)
https://www.facebook.com/CricketThailand.Thai/posts/pfbid02kUhqTWLZUpuYmPzG36mkvxUcGjD6SXXXFEk8SEvtGPv9B7AQYFALUgDM6YRwaUWel
And also found out the team had been training and acclimatizing at Dharamshala in northern India since before the New Year :-)
Anyways, the ICC had an empty list for Thailand until just before the Namibia match started, when they switched to listing their most recent line-up, including the retired players, before finally showing the correct current line up when they finally started carrying the live score, several overs into the match; things didn't exactly start well for Thailand with Namibia getting 11 runs in the first over bowled by Phannita Maya, including a wide from the first delivery, though Thailand eventually stabilized and held Namibia to 107 runs, still Namibia's highest score against Thailand (though not officially, since warmups are never counted for official stats)
Thailand's opening partnership in response was Natthakan Chantham and teenager Aphisara Suwanchonrathi, and Thailand reached 47 runs before the latter was bowled out... Of these, "only" 31 came off their bats (12 from Aphisara, 19 from Natthakan), with Victoria Hamunyela chipping in 7 wides in a single over out of Thailand's 15 (thus also more than doubling the length of that over LOL.)
https://www.facebook.com/100092408662192/posts/most-wides-7-by-a-bowler-in-a-t20i-over-ever-joint-most-extras-given-by-a-bowler/796302206793394/
Also the second time in a month's time that someone bowled 7 wides in an international T20 over LOL.
Two of Namibia's other bowlers also conceded 10+ runs from a single over as well, one of them Leigh-Marie Visser (who had conceded 16 from a single over in their last meeting; this time she conceded "only" 11, got Natthakan's wicket, and FWIW didn't concede any extras)
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/samoan-darius-visser-breaks-t20i-batting-records-with-39-runs-in-one-over-1448069
Speaking of people named Visser and high-scoring overs, check out this 2024 item from Samoa :-)
Thailand managed to equal the Namibia total at the end of 16 overs, before hitting the winner, a boundary, 3 balls later; somewhat surprisingly, the Player of the Match was actually from the Namibia side, with Yasmeen Khan claiming the honors from her batting with a 54-run effort, and definitely not her bowling (she was the other Namibia bowler who conceded double digit runs in a single over, LOL) The ball-by-ball came in fits and starts, with results sometimes stopping for several minutes at a time (despite no hint of rain) before coming in at a rate of like 30 seconds per over; Cricket Ireland also had a warmup today (against hosts Nepal, winning 200-101) and their live blog had to apologize for their live score pausing due to wi-fi issues, and having to post the live score there instead :-\ In other results, Bangladesh beat the Dutch 151-125, PNG beat the Zims 131-120, and rather surprisingly, USA chased down Scotland's 149 with 7 balls to spare (!) (their best score, and first win against Scotland obviously, though again not officially)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1342957754537310&set=pb.100064692940666.-2207520000&type=3
The Cricket Association of Thailand Facebook finally announced the official line up after the warm-up match, with a brand new name in the list: Thanrada Seesawan, turning 16 in a few months (she didn't see any action against the Namibs, though)
https://cricclubs.com/TC/viewPlayer.do?playerId=2749206&clubId=14179
Domestically, she's batted 30 T20 innings since 2023 (playing for Nan province), though she's really come into her own last year if her batting averages are of any indication
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qclran/comment/nzj4aid/
In response on Reddit, CarnivalSorts reckons: "I think they'll make the Super Six with little issue but they're right on the edge of qualifying for me. Ireland, Bangladesh and Scotland should be fine, then a big fight between Thailand and Netherlands for the last spot" Which sounds about right to me :-) (And Thailand and Netherlands play in the same group, so qualification might effectively be decided there, and conveniently enough, it's on the last match day of the groups)
https://nitter.net/Emerging98/status/2011707709121601902#m
CzarSportz (prominent Twitter account for Associate cricket news) was critical that Thailand and Scotland were not getting the same opportunities to play better opposition that the Zims were by playing in the next Women's Championship cycle (though surprisingly, no mention of Harare 2021 and how much of a inflection point the cancellation was for Associates :-\): "The whole scenario of these 2 teams to keep playing fellow Associates year long is helping other Associates elevate their performances against these 2, not themselves." (The lone reply suggested, as always, giving them their own second-level league)
On to warmup 2, against full member Bangladesh:
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=10;filter=advanced;opposition=4240;orderby=team_score;team=4242;template=results;type=team;view=innings
We've never beaten Bangladesh in T20s, and our only win in ODIs was a) on Duckworth-Lewis score, b) at Harare 2021, and rendered pointless by the tournament's cancellation, and c) was not technically an ODI at the time of competition (long story)... Based on our post-pandemic results (2022 T20 Qualifiers [semifinals to decide qualification]: 113-102, despite a 64 from Natthakan, and 39 in the last 3 overs; 2022 Asia Cup: 88-82, chased down in 70 balls; 2024 Asia Cup: 100-96, chased down with 15 balls to spare), realistically, we should hope to bat out our overs, make at least 90 against them, and have our score last at least 100 balls (either score more in our overs than Bangladesh's score at 100 balls, or have Bangladesh take 100 balls up to chase)
Well, mission accomplished on all three fronts: We did bat out our overs (with the loss of 7 wickets), set a new (unofficial) high against Bangladesh with 115 (including a half century from wicketkeeper Nannapat Koncharoenkai), whereas Bangladesh was at 112 after 100 balls, though they got to 149 from their overs thanks to three maximums in the last 7 balls
That said, stalwart Natthakan only managed 7 from 12 balls, and 5 of our 7 bowlers had an economy rate of higher than 6 (i.e. 1 run per ball) One of the other two, Onnicha Kamchomphu, was exactly at 6, and the other was... Phannita Maya? Really? She conceded 19 from her 2 overs against Namibia for a 9.5 rate, but only conceded 7 in her 2 overs against Bangladesh for a 3.5 rate... Maybe it's something about the Mulpani pitch that favors her style, I dunno... Anyways, the Association's Facebook put their spin (pun not intended) on the result as "A valuable hit-out against Bangladesh Women"
In other results, the Dutch comfortably beat Namibia 201-115 (though the Dutch got hat-tricked by the Namibs' Jurriene Diergaardt), the USA won their match against Nepal, chasing down their 136 with 5 balls left, Scotland chased down PNG's 111 in exactly 13 overs, and Ireland chased down the Zims' 125 with one over to spare... It just so happens that Thailand and Netherlands both warmed up against the same two opponents, but the Bangladesh results can be more easily and directly compared since both teams batted second; Netherlands lost by 8 fewer runs, and managed to bat in 10 more runs than Thailand, and managed to have 3 bowlers out of 7 below 6.0 economy rate; so it'll be interesting to see what approach Thailand will take against Netherlands and how effective it'll be
https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=10;opposition=4242;orderby=batting_average;team=2461;template=results;type=batting
Based on batting averages against Thailand, the ones we'll need to figure out how to get out ASAP are Sterre Kalis, Heather Siegers, and Babette de Leede... And for good measure, Phebe Molkenboer, since her best innings against Thailand was the game in Nepal that the Dutch won
On to the qualifiers now, with the first match against Nepal, at Tribhuvan Uni... Their previous encounter was on Thailand's home soil at the Asian qualifier and was a comfy win for Thailand, but the three matches before that were on this exact ground in the 2025 Nepal Tri-Series, and while those were also all wins for Thailand, two of them were rather cutting it close, winning by 5 runs in one match and taking 19 overs to chase down Nepal's total in another... OTOH, Nepal had a 5 match tour to Malaysia in October, and only squeaked by 3-2
I had a quick look-in as Nepal batted first and reached 11 overs, and noticed that they had 71 runs on the board with just one wicket; in comparison Nepal's highest score against Thailand had been 101, twice at home during the aforementioned Tri-Series... That said, the main reason they were above one run a ball at that point was Samjhana Kadhka scoring 26 off of 11 balls (with 6 boundaries, so all but 2 runs from those), and Thippatcha had already taken her wicket with a catch by captain Naruemol Chaiwai in the 6th over... I had another look-in near the end if Nepal's innings, where Rubina Chhetry hit a maximum in the 17th over to surpass their previous 101 high, then again in the 18th, before getting stumped by Nannapat for 17 after 10 runs with Nepal at 115, before Nepal finished with 122 all-out, slightly better than one-a-ball, entirely due to Samjhana and Rubina's contributions, as the only players to post a better than 100 strike rate (which also means one-a-ball)
In response, Thailand opened with its new regular opening pairing of Natthakan and Aphisara, and managed an opening partnership of 66 runs over a shade over 9 overs before Aphisara was bowled by Sita Magar for 28... Next up was Nannapat Koncharoenkai, and both she and Natthakan continued to bring in the runs for Thailand at a steady rate, passing 100 midway through the 15th over, before Nannapat was LBW'd out by Sita for 32 midway through the 16th over at 113, with Thailand needing just 10 more runs to chase down Nepal, and after a couple singles between Natthakan and Naruemol, Natthakan smacked consecutive boundaries to reach a half-century for herself, then the win for the team, with Thailand's 125 their second-highest total against Nepal, and highest away from home... Meanwhile, in the other match of the same group, the Dutch beat Thailand's next opponent, Zimbabwe, 122-100, despite being all out after 19 overs (and a 5-fer from Christabel Chatonzwa) (Also, Ireland over PNG and Bangladesh over USA in the other group)
The Lady Chevrons actually have a slight edge record-wise against Thailand (5-4), but they hadn't met since 2023, where Natthakan scored her last half-century against a full member (they also beat Thailand twice the last time they met in a T20 Qualifier)
Their record since the 2023 meeting: 20-19-1 (against non-Africans: 6-16-1, including 9 losses against their only full-member opponent Ireland)
Last year's record: 7-6 (against non-Africans: 2-6, with 3 losses against Ireland)
They're getting a Women's Championship slot this cycle though, as a cancellation of a certain qualifier (held on their soil, I might add) continues to cast a shadow on the figurative pavement :-\
It was a real nail-biter at Mulpani, even to this live-score-only viewer... Thailand lost their opening wicket on the 2nd ball, with Aphisara being caught by Audrey Mazvishaya; however, Nannapat managed to bring some sense of stability for the next 7 overs and a bit until the Zims got Natthakan's wicket for 26 runs with Thailand at 49... Not too quickly, but somewhat shorter than some might have preferred or hoped :-\ Nonetheless, Nannapat kept going as she and the other players helped bring the score up to 102 with a half-century of her own before being run out in the 18th over (one of 3 wickets that over) Thailand eventually finished on 115 runs, with Suleeporn Laomi and Onnicha Kamchomphu stealing an extra run off the last ball after an overthrow from the infield LOL. (Saw this in the video highlights after the fact, of course)
Thailand managed to get off to a decent defensive start by running out Beloved Biza before she could even get an at-bat, and although the opener Chipo Mugeri-Tiripano managed 19 runs off 18 balls (all but one from boundaries and a maximum), she also got run out one ball shy of 5 overs... Thailand's bowlers managed to tamp down the Lady Chevrons' run rate over the next 5 overs, getting them to 42 at the drinks break (Thailand had 61) Zims came out of the break with 17 and 10 run overs to put them above Thailand on the curve, and from that point Thailand needed every dot-ball, wicket, and defensive stop they could get their hands on... Whereas the Zims had limited Thailand to 14 runs over the last 3 overs, Thailand would then limit the Lady Chevrons to 12 between the 16th to 18th overs (including back-to-back wickets, by Thipatcha of course :-)), with Josephine Nkomo (somewhat decent batter) and Nyasha Gwanzura (not so much) at the crease needing 18 runs from the last two overs, but a boundary from Nyasha on the last ball of the 19th put things in reach for the Lady Chevrons, with them needing "only" 8 runs to tie from the last over, and the team nabbing two doubles and three singles from the first 5 balls set things up for the big finale...
...which to this live-score-only viewer, it took forever for the update to show up, and I was dreading a boundary or even a double from Nyasha, and even a single would force a Super Over ("extra innings", cricket style) but thankfully, it came up a run out for Nyasha, and a one-run win for Thailand, with that "stolen" run making the difference... and watching the video of that last ball, it's quite a remarkable fielding and run-out from Phannita Maya :-)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qhnogl/comment/o0lc0zw/
"After this match, we'll likely get another reason to mock the ICC for letting Zimbabwe into the Women's Championship over associates like Thailand."
Regardless of result, there'd probably be mocking aplenty anyhow, even if the irony seems lost on everyone that it was the cancellation of 2021 ODI qualifiers on their soil that kept Associates (read Thailand) from making it through to the Women's Championship, and now they're going to get a slot on the same technicality that gave Ireland a slot instead of having them play Thailand for it :-\ (they were effectively out of the 2021 qualifiers at the point it was abandoned given how difficult it would have been for them to qualify for the Super 6's from that point, and they didn't play the 2025 event either)
If I were part of the support staff for the Thailand women's cricket team or whatever, I probably would have recommended the team to head over to Tribhuvan in the afternoon (or maybe send other support staff or whatever there in the first place, since the former would have been quite a to-do given it's about 15 kilos in traffic, and there was an hour or so between the matches) to scope out both of our remaining opponents playing each other :-) Netherlands managed 157 in their overs, buoyed by Sterre Kalis' 87; Scotland only managed 150 in response despite both Kaths (Fraser and Bryce) putting up 40-run efforts (with Heather Siegers shutting the Scots down in the final over), giving the Dutch the win, and giving them a good chance of making the next round... Thailand would have plenty of time to study the figurative tapes as well, since the next match day is a bye day for them :-)
(In other results: Namibia fell to the US, with the Americans (mostly of South Asian descent, based on the names) chasing down 144 with 4 balls to spare, while Bangladesh beat PNG 168-138)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qh2xou/fixtures_for_the_acc_womens_asia_cup_rising_stars/
https://twitter.com/ACCMedia1/status/2013147289490235721#m
And while looking around Reddit for reactions (including the above), I found out that the ACC are going ahead with their Women's Emerging Cup after all, to be held in February... albeit under a new name, Women's Asia Cup Rising Stars, and held in the originally reported venue of Bangkok :-) (That said, it probably would have done more good for the emerging nations before the qualifiers)
While we're waiting for the next game, the Association Facebook page announced the U19 Women's Super League, and since the senior team was over in Nepal, teams consisted mostly of, shall we say, up-and-comers, with a handful of players with national U19 team experience (the schedule)
https://cricclubs.com/TC/viewPlayer.do?playerId=3094983&clubId=14179
A quick pull up of one of the players with national team experience shows that her only international experience before the U19 Qualifiers was a series of matches with Malaysia a month earlier, listed as two separate series; which speaks to the importance of international experience (indeed, almost 6 years ago, during the T20 World Cup, The Cricketer magazine wrote that "Natthakan Chant[h]am's sparkling half-century shows what Thailand can do with exposure and experience"... just before Covid essentially wiped out that whole year like rain had wiped out the match she made that performance in, then also stopped Thailand from qualifying for the Women's Championship; I know I've been banging on that old drum a lot, but given how consequential that turn of events was and has continued to be, can you really blame me for that?) What I'm saying is that Thailand needs to give their young-uns some game time with better international opponents than Malaysia if they want to keep some semblance of a talent pipeline...
So anyways, Thailand's bye day, with Nepal playing the Dutch in the morning at Tribhuvan, and the Scots playing the Zims at Mulpani in the afternoon, and it'd probably behoove Thailand to watch those games and study their moves... Hopefully they did so, but one thing I'd also expect them to do was to at least acknowledge the birthday of not just one, but TWO of their players, as both Sunida Chaturongrattana (didn't bat, but had the best bowling economy against the Zims :-)) and Suleeporn Laomi (had 9 runs at the tail end of Thailand's innings), were born on 22 January 6 years apart (Laomi in '98, Chaturongrattana in '04)
Anyways, results: The Dutch pipped Nepal by 2 runs 140-138, while the Scots had a comfy win over the Lady Chevrons, chasing down the Zims' 101 in under 14 overs (this actually gives them a better NRR than the two teams ahead of them, the Dutch and the Thais; it's also the lowest winning score so far, though our win over the Zims is the lowest defended winning score)... In the other group, Ireland beat the US 154-138, while Bangladesh bundled Namibia all-out on their way to a 144-64 win :-) So we can safely put Bangladesh and Netherlands through to the Super 6's, but it'll take a little computational help to sort out possibilities for the remaining teams... So we'll just consider Thailand's group B, starting with the teams with the least chance (as a reminder, the remaining games are SCO-THA and NEP-ZIM on Saturday, and NEP-SCO and NED-THA on Monday)
- Zimbabwe: Obviously need to win their last match against Nepal, plus also need Thailand and Nepal to beat Scotland by enough to put the NRR in their favor
- Nepal: Winning both matches would give them a good chance, with NRR coming into play in the case of Scots beating the Thais; at the very least a win over Scotland is necessary, though that would also require a Thai win over the Scots, as well as favorable NRR
Onto the teams that have a good chance of getting through:
- Thailand: The only case that would see them out is them losing both games (given what our opponents have been doing in the first few matches, not actually that far beyond the realm of possibility, to be fair) and then Nepal winning both games, and then NRR has to be in both Scotland and Nepal's favor (at a cursory check, looks like in most cases Thailand will carry over whatever points they earn from the last two matches, though not necessary directly from those matches; the only way it wouldn't be the case is if Nepal won both games, Thailand lost both games, and both teams had a better NRR than Scotland, which would then give Thailand two points carried over from the win over Nepal)
- Scotland: The only cases that would put the Scots out all involve Nepal winning both matches; a loss to Thailand would then put them out in wins alone, whereas a win over the Thais would require NRR to be considered
- Netherlands: Already through with at least two points carried over; the only question is whether they'll be first or second, and how many points they'll carry over
Wow, that was a lot to explain, but extending that to include NRR calculations, as well as how the Super 6's might play out, would almost feel like ESPN anchors Dan Patrick and Kenny Mayne in this sort-of-classic scene from a sort-of-forgotten sports spoof (which also gave us this awesome A-Ha cover... well, they already covered it a few years earlier and just made a new version of the video, but enough with that digression); thankfully, we won't need to worry about Natthakan and friends sack-racing the Bryce sisters LOL.
So yeah, it's a pretty complicated picture, so let's wait to see match day 4 clear things up... First though, a quick look at Weather Underground's forecast for the next week suggests that the two morning matches of the first Super 6's match day might get wiped out by rain, and the afternoon match is looking doubtful as well... Based on the notation for the schedule, it's likely we'd be scheduled to face one of the full members in whichever of those matches we end up in, and a rain-out would actually be beneficial for us since we'd steal a point from our opposition (welcome back 2022 Asia Cup LOL)
Match day 4, with Scotland at Tribhuvan Uni... Last time the teams met in a T20 Qualifier, the Scots held the Thais to 99, with Naruemol topping out at 36, before chasing it down under 18 overs to make it to the semis; however, Natthakan was not part of the team that played that qualifier, so it'll be interesting to see her performance, as Thailand will surely be banking on her (and the other Na's, to be fair) to last long enough to make a good impact
And it turns out Natthakan didn't make much of an impact at all, being dismissed on a run out for 1(!) after just 7 balls (Thailand actually scored more from extras with her at the striker's end than from the bat, with 2 wides), after losing Aphisara on the first ball of the innings, and by drinks the team was at 39 for 3... To their credit, they managed to recover to post some semblance of a decent score, with Thailand going for 29 runs in the last two overs to post a total of 118 for 6, with 73(!) of that coming from captain Naruemol (including consecutive maximums to start the last over!)
(It was a particularly cheap run out for Natthakan, I might add: the video highlights suggest that she started a run after getting the hit and had gotten most of the way to the other end, whereas Nannapat stayed put, so hopefully Natthakan has learnt her lesson and won't go out that cheaply against the Dutch)
Scotland lost Darcey Carter 3 balls in for a duck from a runout, and captain Kathryn Bryce only managed 8 runs from two boundaries before being bowled by Thipatcha, but that was the extent of the bad news for the Scots, as the other Kath, Fraser put up 41 from 31 balls, and the other Bryce, Sarah chipped in 52, including a game winning maximum before the end of over 15, beating Thailand quicker than in '24 despite having a bigger target :-\ Scotland's win over the Thais now puts them in 2nd place on NRR above Thailand, while in other results, PNG beat Namibia, chasing down 122 with 2 balls to spare, Bangladesh beat Ireland 153-144 in the group A battle of the full members, and Nepal beat the Zims, chasing down 129 with 3 balls to spare, ensuring a last-place for the lone full member of group B (go figure)
And in other good news for Scotland, their men's team has been entered into the Men's T20 World Cup in February as a replacement for Bangladesh due to Bangladesh's concerns about playing in India
Back to the women: With the first four match days (and Zimbabwe, LOL) out of the way, the Super 6's picture is now starting to emerge... (with apologies to the above Dan and Kenny scene) Starting with Thailand's group B:
- The Dutch already have two points carried over, and a win over the Thais would give them 4; a loss combined with a win for Scotland over Nepal would knock them into second (and possibly 3rd on NRR, more anon)
- Scotland would have to lose to Nepal by a lot (and likely needing a large Thai loss as well) to miss the next round, while any win over Nepal with a Dutch loss would put them in first; if the Scots were to make the next round, they'd have two points in all cases
- A Thailand win over the Dutch would give them 2 points carried over (which Thailand is probably banking on getting to improve their chances at making it through), and a win by at least 22 runs batting first, or chasing in 100 balls batting second (roughly) would put them over the Dutch in rankings; a big enough loss to the Dutch and a big enough win for Nepal would have Nepal pip Thailand to the next round
- Nepal would need to beat Scotland, and would also need a Dutch win by enough runs to overturn the NRR
The picture is much easier for group A:
- Bangladesh have finished their games, and they'll have four points carried over regardless of anything
- Ireland are playing Namibia, and their NRR is far ahead of USA and PNG, so that's probably 2nd place all sewn up, with two points carried over
- The USA and PNG are facing each other, and whoever wins will finish 3rd for a spot in the Super 6's
- Even if the Namibs were to beat the Irish, they'd only finish 4th at most, because they could only overtake the loser of USA-PNG
Given that group rankings will be used to determine match schedules, a second place for Thailand would have them play Ireland, Bangladesh, and the winner of PNG/USA in that order, while third place would have them play Bangladesh, PNG/USA winner, then Ireland; in light of the washout possibility for the first match, the second arrangement would be slightly more favorable (First place team would have PNG/USA winner, then Ireland and Bangladesh, though the first match is in the afternoon rather than the morning)
Final group match day, against the Netherlands at Mulpani, in the afternoon... Thailand had won 10 of their 13 meetings in history, but their most recent defeat was last year in the Nepal Tri-series (though that was at Tribhuvan Uni) They last met at a T20 qualifier in 2019, in which Natthakan and Naruemol raced out to 76 in a shortened 9-over match, before Thailand held the Dutch to 44; the Dutch did beat Thailand in warmups for the 2024 qualifier, but they needed a Super Over to win, and warmups don't count for official stats
The morning matches saw wins for Scotland over Nepal 140-68 (putting the Scots through with 2 points) and in a real surprise, USA with their first ever win over PNG, chasing down 110 in 18 overs (assisted by a 17-run opening over, putting them in the next round at their opponents' expense) So anyways, Thailand managed to get out Heather Siegers, Phebe Molkenboer (star of their last win in a meaningful match-up), and Sterre Kalis out for ducks (0's in cricket parlance; Phebe's was a first-ball wicket even) though captain Babette de Leede still managed to knock in 47 from as many balls, with decent supporting turns from Robine Rijke, Frederique Overdijk, and Iris Zwilling eventually getting the Dutch to 107 for 8, which sounds perfectly chaseable, right? (Since the pandemic, Thailand had never not successfully chased down the Dutch when batting second) Well, the Dutch also got Aphisara and Nannapat's wickets for ducks and although Natthakan hit several boundaries, she eventually was bowled out for 26, while Naruemol chipped in another 33 before being caught by Babette... With only 4 of Thailand's batters making it past 2 (the others being Suleeporn Laomi for 13 and Onnicha Kamchomphu for 10), the Dutch comfortably defended their 107 by 17 runs (player of the match: Isabel Van Der Woning, who got 4 wickets for 14 runs, including that of Natthakan; despite a lack of batting action, the unretired Heather Siegers still managed to be useful, getting 2 wickets on the bowling end)... Thailand still made the the Super 6's as a result of the Scot win, but it now feels more a case of "getting it over with" rather than having any real shot of qualification (they'd have to win through their matches to have any shot [even taking into account the chance of a rain out against Bangladesh], and even then, their NRR is quite far behind their closest rivals)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cricket/comments/1qn7mca/comment/o1skke1/
Phoneix150 said on Reddit: "Unfortunately the Thai girls have regressed since those heady days 5-6 years ago" (FWIW, I think it's more other teams catching up than Thailand coming down), and of course, Dizzydan015 cites that they "should have been at the 2022 ODI World Cup and also got denied playing in the women's championship due to being associates" (Gee, ya think there might be a correlation there? Even if I don't think they would've beaten Sri Lanka and Windies at Harare 2021 to make that World Cup; to me, all the importance would've been on the game against Ireland to decide the Women's Championship slot) That they missed both opportunities at the same time despite Harare 2021 being specifically designed to minimize the chances of that, and that the same Women's Championship opportunity did not come up again at Lahore 2025, makes it all the harder to swallow (there's that old drum beaten yet again, and get ready for me to beat it some more :-\) K99-94 also added: "I remember their game in T20 WC against Pak..felt so bad for them (That was the rain-out with Natthakan's half-century, and I should also mention that this was also Thailand's highest-ever T20 score at the time, 150 - SB) no new talent coming..they'll likely end up where their men's team is" That oft-quoted line about "It might have been" might very well have been written about Thailand's women cricket: Besides Covid keeping Thailand off the field for more than year (and then their first games back being preparation for Harare 2021), getting that win over Pakistan in 2020 not only would've been a showcase win for the ages (especially compared to the 2022 win at the regional Asia Cup hardly causing a blip in the grand scheme of things), it also likely would've meant not having to play the qualifiers in '22, while parlaying their win over Bangladesh at Harare 2021 to at least a Women's Championship slot would've meant more opportunity for Thailand to play quality opposition and thus get better/remain competitive with other full members, as well as more motivation for Thailand to improve their talent pipeline... At worst, it would've delayed their regression, while at best, well, I wouldn't get too optimistic, but maybe they'd have a few finals wins under their belt by now; more importantly, it would've shut out their most likely rivals for that last spot, Ireland, from getting where they are now (or, to quote a somewhat-less-quoted corollary to the oft-quoted line: "It is, but hadn't ought to be")... Speaking of whom, the Irish chased down Namibia's own 107 for 8 in just over 14 overs to solidify their 2nd place in group A
Of course, frequent Twitter commenters Bertus de Jong and hypocaust had their things to say about the Lady Chevrons of Zimbabwe getting a Women's Championship slot, with hypo specifically adding "the match experience will be invaluable going forward", though they don't mention Thailand at any point... Whereas Phoneix150 on Reddit thought that "ICC should hang their heads in shame" about taking away Thailand's big opportunity for such experience on a technicality and giving it to arguably their closest rivals without having them playing each other for it, hypocaust responded to another user suggesting that there should be a League 2 for women and more emerging trophy matches by saying "That would contravene the ICC's guiding principles - How can an anonymous suit make short-term personal gain from this?" "Meaning of this principle?" "Greed and open corruption above all else." "Unfortunate to hear that!!"
Anyways, here's the Super 6's picture as far as I understand it:
- Bangladesh: 4 points, +0.750 NRR (311 runs / 40 overs for, 281 runs / 40 overs against)
- Netherlands: 4 points, +0.600 NRR (264 runs / 40 overs for, 240 runs / 40 overs against)
- Scotland: 2 points, +1.029 NRR (274 runs / 34.4 overs for, 275 runs / 40 overs against)
- Ireland: 2 points, +0.175 NRR (298 runs / 40 overs for, 291 runs / 40 overs against)
- USA: 0 points, -0.925 NRR (275 runs / 40 overs for, 312 runs / 40 overs against)
- Thailand: 0 points, -1.463 NRR (208 runs / 40 overs for, 231 runs / 34.4 overs against)
It'll probably be Thailand vs the US to avoid last place in the Super 6's, with the other matches merely determining placement amongst the qualifiers; the matches subject to rain-out are Scotland vs Ireland (arguably the closest match-up) and Bangladesh vs Thailand, with the Dutch playing the USA in the afternoon also potentially affected; taking those into account, here's how I reckon the Super 6's should finish up:
- Bangladesh: 9 points (rain-out against Thailand, wins over Scotland and Netherlands)
- Ireland: 7 points (rain-out against Scotland, wins over Netherlands and Thailand)
- Netherlands: 5 or 6 points (either win over US or rain-out, losses to Ireland and Bangladesh)
- Scotland: 5 points (rain-out against Ireland, loss to Bangladesh, win over US)
- Thailand: 3 points (rain-out against Bangladesh, win over US, loss to Ireland)
- USA: 0 or 1 points (either loss to Netherlands or rain-out, losses to Thailand and Scotland)
It'd take heavy wins against the USA and Ireland just to give Thailand a chance, and it still would've been a big to-do, even before Ireland were given the slot in the Women's Championship :-\ And based on the US beating Scotland in the warm-ups, we shouldn't take USA not getting any Super 6's wins for granted either :-\ (In fact, more about that anon)
During the break day, I decided to check out the Cricket Association of Thailand's CricClubs page, and found out that in addition to the U19 Women's Super League, there was also the Chanthaburi Championship, in both U12 and U18 categories for boys and girls, as well as a Men's Super League coming up... The Chanthaburi U12 games, as well as U18 girls, are all being contested by schools from within Chanthaburi province, and mostly all within Soi Dao district, where the venue, Soi Dao Wittaya school, is based... Three of the four U18 boys' teams are apparently not school-based, while the other is the hosts themselves (and a quick check of the scorecards and ball-by-balls suggest there's the usual bowling issues, and only penalizing bad deliveries with extra runs) (The schedule for the Men's Super League was posted after the tourney)
Meanwhile, I took a look at the Netherlands and Scotland and their women's cricket situations: Netherlands have competitions in the 20-over and longer categories (Vrouwen T20, and the two-division Vrouwen Topklasse [40 overs] and Hoofdklasse [30 overs], respectively), while Scotland has a Women's Premier League (not to be confused with India's), plus a T20 Cup (and of course, they're a quick hop from full members England and Ireland as well :-)) Thailand does have some semblance of domestic competition, but the matches are usually held at a single ground (though TBF, the 2025 Men's U19 league used both Terdthai and AIT) and feel more like glorified training camp competitions to me; while the Chanthaburi Championship is contested amongst a single district's schools, so what about other provinces (or for that matter, even schools from other districts in Chanthaburi?) Of course, this circles right back to the general lack of suitable grounds in the country (ESPNCricInfo lists 56 grounds in the Netherlands, and 39 in Scotland, though I'd suspect every major town in Scotland has at least one ground; Thailand has just 5 listed, and Soi Dao is not counted among them)
On the day before the first round of the Super 6's, I took another check at the Weather Underground forecast, and Kathmandu's forecast was downgraded from morning rain to just cloudy, which could mean that the potential rain-outs could go ahead, but that doesn't really change the expected calculus significantly:
- Bangladesh: 10 points (wins over all the teams)
- Ireland: 6 or 8 points (Scotland pending, wins over Netherlands and Thailand)
- Netherlands: 6 points (win over US, losses to Ireland and Bangladesh)
- Scotland: 4 or 6 points (Ireland pending, loss to Bangladesh, win over US)
- Thailand: 2 points (loss to Bangladesh, win over US, loss to Ireland)
- USA: 0 points (losses to all the teams)
Under this consideration, Thailand would need Scotland to lose to both Ireland and Bangladesh (the bigger the better of course), then beat Ireland themselves (or Bangladesh, but I've already noted that has never happened), to have a chance of getting into 4th on NRR (Or Ireland, with a lower NRR, could be beaten by either the Scots or Dutch, but Thailand would still need to beat Ireland; if Ireland somehow lost to both other teams, there'd be no need to consider NRR)
Super 6's day 1: Both morning games went the whole 20 overs on both sides, with the Scots beating the Irish 160-121, once again showing the Irish maybe "hadn't ought to be" in the Women's Championship (at least, not on the technicality that got them in in the first place), and Bangladesh beating Thailand yet again, 165-126 (same size of margin as the other game) The only bright spots for Thailand were getting a first-ball wicket from opener Dilara Akter, and then Sharmin Akhter's wicket before 2 overs were up; otherwise, Juairiya Ferdous and Sobhana Mostary's half-centuries, plus a partnership that lasted just under 14 overs guided them home... Meanwhile, Thailand's opener, Suwanan Khiaoto this time rather than Aphisara, also fell to a first-ball wicket of her own, while the best performance at the bat from Thailand was Natthakan (of course), and while she did not go out cheaply, she did end up just short of a half-century (46) before she was caught by Dilara Akter; other notable turns were by the other Na's Nannapat and Naruemol, with 29 and 30 respectively (and 126 is also a new high against Bangladesh; gotta take what positives we can get, even if it's pretty much the case that their large innings gave them leeway to allow us to get that high)
Meanwhile, in the afternoon, Netherlands-USA ended up being shortened due to rain, go figure... The US went first and raced out to 129/7, just over run-a-ball, with Gargi Bhogle and Isani Vaghela contributing more than half of those runs, whereas in response, the Dutch managed to get to 90/2 after 12 overs (with a bit more than half from Phebe Molkenboer, and with 46 not out, she probably would've loved another over or two to get the half-century) before rain ended the game, with the Dutch being credited with a 21 run win, and the US being credited for 69 runs for NRR purposes... And as it turns out, alongside Bangladesh, the Dutch have now qualified for their first ever Women's T20 World Cup (with a mention of Thailand's screwjob in the Reddit post announcing this)
(Ironically, while these Super 6's were being played, another ICC tournament was being held in Harare, and also having its Super 6's; safe to say Thailand isn't qualifying for that tournament anytime soon)
So while we're now expecting a 3 way tie for 2-4th with 6 points, I decided to do some quick calculations to determine by how much Thailand would have to beat Ireland to overtake their NRR, assuming a) Ireland beat the Netherlands batting first, b) Thailand beat the US batting first, and c) Thailand scored 120 against the Irish batting first:
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 20: at least 24 runs
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 40: at least 15 runs
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 20: at least 29 runs
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 40: at least 20 runs
In a nutshell, roughly 29 - (Thai margin-Irish margin)/2 runs
I also decided to determine how quick we'd have to chase down 120 if we batted second (assuming we got 121):
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 20: 94 balls
- Irish over Dutch by 10, Thais over US by 40: 105 balls
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 20: 88 balls
- Irish over Dutch by 20, Thais over US by 40: 99 balls
Roughly 88 + (Thai margin-Irish margin)*55% balls, so in either case, we'd better trounce the US and hope Irish don't beat the Dutch by too much (preferably, at all, so that the NRR wouldn't matter, and "simply" beating Ireland would suffice) It would be a whole different kettle of fish with either Irish or Thais batting second and chasing their opponents in their 2nd Super 6 matches, so I decided to wait to see how (if) I'd have to adjust the calculations... Turns out I didn't have to deal with this, but more on that in a bit (spoiler alert: :-\)
Super 6's match day 2: The morning saw the already-through Bangladesh taking on the Scots, and the Irish taking on the already-through Dutch... Bangladesh amassed a 191 run innings on the back of captain Nigar Sultana (56) and Sobhana Mostary (47), and after a first-ball wicket for Darcey Carter in response, Scotland only managed 101 in response for a 90-run loss... but the Irish had that margin beat: After making a 143-run innings with star turns from Amy Hunter (34) and Leah Paul (39), they then shut down the Dutch after a promising 9-run first over, eventually bundling them out for 45 runs, for a 98-run win (!) These wins are pretty much emblematic of how big the gulf is between even the best Associates and the lower-tier full-members (well, barring Ireland and Scotland)
The afternoon was US v. Thailand (meeting for the third time ever, all at T20 Global Qualifiers), and Dizzydan015 and K99-94 on Reddit had it like this: "Loser of this game is eliminated" "Winner will be eliminated too😃 in 2 days" LOL. (First part is correct, more on the second part anon)
The US put up a 128-run innings, surpassing their previous best against Thailand of 79 in 2022 (last time around they got only 54, and were surpassed with 56 in 56 balls) Presumably Thailand would have been relying on the Na's to chase it down, but Natthakan got LBW'd out after just one boundary and 3 balls, and reserve player Nannaphat Chaihan, seeing her first action since Dec 2024, was bowled out for a duck in 7 balls... Nannapat Koncharoenkai and Naruemol Chaiwai managed to put 59 for their efforts (28 and 31 respectively), but they would go all out in 19 overs with 100 runs, giving the US their second first-ever win over another nation in these qualifiers (after PNG in the groups) So Thailand's final game against Ireland will truly be a matter of "getting it over with", since the best they can get is 5th, after which they should have a long hard look at themselves :-\ (Well, the Asia Cup Rising Stars tournament starts a week after the qualifiers, but you get the idea)
(Of course Wikipedia has an article about cric in the states, and to paraphrase the meme, if I had a nickel every time a "foreign" sport rose in prominence in the states after hosting a World Cup for it, I'd have two nickels; okay, cric is still somewhat marginal there, and their women's national team is still mainly of south Asian descent, but still, there's a whole proper domestic league, albeit just men's, while the women's team is derived from a more elaborate pathway than Thailand)
Just for fun though, I calculated how much the US would have to beat the Scots by, to overtake them for the last qualification spot... and it turns out to be lower than the 0.24 NRR difference makes it look:
- Batting first and scoring 120: At least 9 runs
- Batting first and chasing 120: With at least 7 balls to spare
Hmm, interesting... As for Ireland, they'd have to lose by 66 runs (or be chased in under 63 balls) just to lower their NRR to 0, and it'd take a 30-run win by the US (or a sub-16-over chase) for them to get their NRR up to 0, and then Scotland would still have a worse NRR, so we can safely pencil them through to the finals
As for Thailand, looks like we might have to wait until the next expansion of the Cup, to 16 teams in 2030 (10 years removed from our previous) to make it in again :-\ Taking a look at the ESPNCricInfo page on our players (cutting out the ones who've already retired), Natthakan probably has a couple more campaigns left in her, and would be 34 at the time of the qualifiers for 2030, but captain Narumol would be 39, the same age Nattaya retired at, and Chanida Sutthiruang would be 36... That said, the next oldest players, Suleeporn Laomi and Onnicha Kamchomphu are the only other ones who would be on the older side of 30 (they're now 28, so will be 32 then); we still have 8 players listed under 26, and even the other retiree Rosenanee, at 26, would just be turning 30 by then
Final day of the tournament, and most of the teams already have their summer plans sorted out, but anyways, the morning games were Bangladesh-Netherlands, with Bangladesh chasing down the Dutch's total of 102 with more than 3 overs left, and Ireland-Thailand, with Ireland obliterating Thailand 121-59 (Naruemol topped for Thailand with 22, while Natthakan got 2 boundaries in her first 4 balls before being bowled out by the 5th, Thanrada Seesawan finally saw some action but only lasted 3 balls, and Suleeporn Laomi managed to get 4 Irish wickets, but in response, Arlene Kelly managed 4 of her own before the Thais were bowled out in a bit more than 16 overs), and Anu commenting on Reddit "It’s just sad to see Thailand losing this way", which, yeah, same (especially given that we'd of course beaten them the last time we met at a qualifiers, long before they got gifted their big break) When it comes to analysis of cricket results, sometimes it takes well-paid experts, but for these games, it literally is just a matter of "One team is in the Women's Championship and the other isn't", especially where Thailand and Ireland are concerned, given the circumstances of why (not-so-fun fact: Before Covid wiped out most international cricket in 2020, they were supposed to meet alongside Zimbabwe and the Netherlands for a 50-over quad-tournament in Thailand that April, before then playing the ODI World Cup qualifiers in July in Sri Lanka; given the intention to use that tourney to add teams to the Women's Championship, one has to wonder what the results would have been in that timeline) A quick look at ESPNCricInfo's stats page shows that during the last cycle, there were only 3 T20 losses by Women's Championship teams to teams outside the Championship: Two were Irish losses to Scotland (one on tour in Spain and the other at the last qualifiers), and the other was Thailand's sort-of-famous Asia Cup win over Pakistan, while in comparison, the incoming Zimbabwe lost to the UAE 5 times out of 8, Namibia 4 times out 10, Thailand 2 times out of 6, and once each to the Netherlands, USA and Vanuatu
(FWIW, during the previous Women's Championship cycle, the Irish lost 3 times [from 8 games] to Scotland, 3 times [from 4 games] to Thailand, and once [from 7 games] to the Netherlands, as well as 4 out of 5 games against Bangladesh; OTOH, Bangladesh did not lose any games against non-Championship teams other than that one loss to Ireland, so there's a better case for them being included)
The afternoon saw the tournament conclude pretty much as expected, with the Scots beating the US 178-137, with the US being bundled out in 19 overs (still the USA's highest official score against Scotland), so just as expected, the teams that had points carried over were exactly the teams who made it to the World Cup... As for Thailand, not only is the gulf between teams in and not in the Women's Championship getting wider, it also feels like other Associate teams are getting better, and unless Thailand starts getting serious about developing a proper cricket talent pipeline (even a US-style regional model be better than now), they're going to find it very difficult to get back to the World Cup again (and good luck with that "in a country where a Muay Thai right hook is more familiar than a batter's hook shot", as described by AFP's heartache article, and native awareness is probably a single digit percentage)... but first, let's see what comes of the ACC's Asia Cup Rising Stars tournament :-)
(ETA: Tom Grunshaw noted in his roundup of the qualifiers for Emerging Cricket that "Thailand's slide back into the pack becomes ever clearer," adding that their defeats [and arguably even the narrow win over the Zims] "showed a fragile batting line up dependent on three players. Naru[em]ol Chaiwai, Nannapat Koncharoenkai and Natthakam Chant[h]am all made the top-ten run scores [Naruemol was tops for the Thais with 205, 3rd most, while the other two finished 10th and 9th respectively, with 167 and 168 - SB], but at the same time the Thai side were bowled out in three out of seven matches." He also concluded that "Thailand's fielding performances, once the pride of the associate game, now look rusty as a lack of competitive cricket in recent years strangles progress", and that Zimbabwe's "inclusion in the upcoming ODI Women’s Championship looks increasingly ill-judged and unfair." Yep, sounds about right, and time to beat that old drum again :-\)
