Host’s Thailand have been crowned champions of the inaugural Thailand Women’s T20 Smash after they defeated Nepal Women by a big margin of 70 runs in the final at TCG. Both Thailand and Nepal were the team’s to beat leading up-to the final of the tournament, remaining undefeated in the group stages and the semifinals.
Thailand Women took their time at the start of the innings and lost only a solitary wicket en-route to reaching 121 in their allotted 20 overs, as their bowlers routed the Nepal batting line-up, as they were bowled out for a paltry 51 to concede the final by a big margin.
Thailand, coming into the tournament as the highest ranked team in the ICC Women’s T20I team rankings will hope to have gained enough to leapfrog Zimbabwe Women again for the 12th spot, after losing the place to the latter after their 5-match T20I series whitewash over Namibia Women at the beginning of the year.
UAE Women finished 3rd in the competition by defeating Indonesia Women by 9 wickets, while Hong Kong Women claimed 5th place by defeating Myanmar Women by 9 wickets. Malaysia Women finished 7th overall after beating Thailand “A” Women by 84 runs. China Bhutan Women and China Women finished in the final 9th/10th places after both failed to finish in the top 8 after the conclusion of the group stage of the tournament.
Malaysia’s Mas Elysa Yasmin created a flurry of International records with a spell of 6/3 against China Women, which not only broke the best overall Women’s T20I bowling figures set by Botswana’s Botsogo Mpedi against Lesotho in August 2018 (6/8), but also broke the records set by Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis, who took 6/8 against Zimbabwe in a men’s T20 International in 2012 (World Record for T20I match) along with Malaysia’s Arul Suppiah, who took 6/5 for English county Somerset against Glamorgan in 2011 (World Record for any T20 match).
China Women were also at the receiving end on multiple occasions, as they now hold the dubious record of the lowest Team total in a T20I match, making only 14 runs in their group stage match against UAE Women (previous record held by Mexico Women, a total of 18 runs), which the latter won by 189 runs, the highest ever margin victory in any T20I match (both men’s or women’s).
Thailand, Nepal, UAE, Malaysia, China, Bhutan will be back in action in Feb 2019 when the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier will be held in Bangkok, where they will be joined by Kuwait Women team as well.
