THAILAND WOMEN BEAT PNG BUT IT IS SCOTLAND WHO WIN THE QUAD CUP
November 17, 2025
WOMEN REGIONAL CUP 2025
November 20, 2025
THE ICC WOMEN’S EMERGING NATIONS TROPHY IS SET TO LIGHT UP BANGKOK
A new era in women’s international cricket will start with the inaugural edition of the ICC Women’s Emerging Nations Trophy that gets underway in Bangkok on 20th November as the International Cricket Council begins its welcome initiative to give more competitive cricket to the leading women’s teams at Associate level.
With Zimbabwe newly promoted to become the 11th team in the ICC Women’s Championship, the leading eight Associate teams in women’s cricket will play each other in a seven-match T20I league to decide the champions. The competiting teams are ranked from 11th to 19th in the women’s T20I rankings so every match will be competitive between evenly matched teams.
Scotland are the highest ranked team in the competition in 11th place having just overtaken Thailand by beating them by two wickets from the last ball of a very exciting game as Scotland won the Quad Cup recently held at TCG in Bangkok. The Scots are captained by Sarah Bryce in the absence of her sister Kathryn and they won all three of their matches in the Quad Cup as they looked an impressive unit despite not playing since the 50-over World Cup Qualifier in Pakistan where they beat West Indies. They took part in the 2024 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in UAE so also have a great pedigree in T20I cricket.
Hosts Thailand are the second-best team in the tournament according to the current world rankings as they stand in 12th place just behind Scotland. They were the winners of the ICC T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier also held in Bangkok in May and they finished in second place in the Quad Cup with two wins in three matches in their first competitive cricket under new coach South African Peter-John Jansen. He has spent the last two months with the team in High Performance Camps in South Africa and India so Thailand will be looking to maintain their high standards and they will have a chance to gain revenge over Scotland on the last day of the Emerging Nations tournament.
The top four Thai batters all had excellent tournaments in the Quad Cup as Nattaya Boochatham and Chanida Sutthiruang produced a series of useful opening stands to give Nannapat Khoncharoenkai and Natthakan Chantam the opportunity to go for their shots and Natthakan’s beautifully paced unbeaten 45 took her side to victory over PNG to claim second place. Thailand’s spinners are often their strength backed up by their excellence in the field with Onnicha Khamchompu taking her first five-wicket haul against Namibia with her off-spin and Thipatcha Putthawong took 3 for 18 against Scotland with her left-arm spin.
Papua New Guinea are ranked in 13th place after winning the East-Asia Pacific Qualifier held in Fiji by beating Vanuatu in the final with captain Brenda Tau at the helm with bat and behind the stumps. The top four is completed by Netherlands who are ranked in 15th place after finishing second to Ireland in the Europe Qualifier held in Netherlands. Their star player is Sterre Kalis who has built up an outstanding reputation in T20 cricket so that she spent the summer playing for Birmingham Phoenix in the Women’s Hundred after also playing for Warwickshire.
One of the best stories of the year in women’s cricket was the highs and lows experienced by United Arab Emirates who came to Thailand in May as one of the favourites to reach the final stage of qualifying for the ICC Women’s World Cup but they were surprisingly beaten by Nepal as well as by Thailand. Their captain Esha Oza was in tears as she explained that her team’s next two years had been ruined by their failure. Instead, UAE were awarded ODI status and enjoyed an excellent tour to Zimbabwe and now they are returning to Bangkok with another chance to win a major international tournament. They are ranked at 16th place but Esha Oza is undoubtedly one of the best cricketers at this level and has the power to inspire her team to higher levels.
The last three teams in the Emerging Nations tournament all come from the African continent and they all reached the semi-finals of the ICC Women’s World T20 African Qualifier held in Namibia as they have risen to the top level in a region with many teams playing women’s international cricket. Uganda are now ranked in 17th place having just beaten Canada by five matches to nil in a T20I series but they had lost to Zimbabwe in the African Qualifier semi-finals.
Namibia are ranked in 18th place despite losing all three of their matches in the Quad Cup and they beat Tanzania in the African semi-finals before losing to Zimbabwe in the final. Tanzania are the lowest ranked team in the competition as they stand in 19th place but there is definitely the opportunity for all these teams to move up or down in the rankings depending on their results in the next 10 days.
The ICC Women’s Emerging Nations Trophy gets underway on 20th November at TCG and AIT grounds in Bangkok with all eight teams playing on the seven match-days of the tournament. Matches are played at both grounds at 9.30 am and 13.45 pm and the fixtures on the opening day feature Thailand against Netherlands followed by Scotland against Uganda at TCG, while PNG face UAE and Namibia play Tanzania at AIT.
These four fixtures are all intriguing contests with Thailand and Scotland likely to be considered the favourites to win the tournament and intriguing fixtures will continue until the last day on Sunday 30th November when in the afternoon at AIT Thailand and Scotland will contest the 28th and last match of the tournament. Both could still be unbeaten and it will be a winner takes all contest to decide the eventual champions.
There will have been seven full days of cricket before that prediction can be proved correct or not but what is certain is that this initiative to hold a competition involving all the best Associate women’s teams will provide some wonderful competitive cricket and help to raise standards when the teams compete in future tournaments. ICC are going to provide another tournament for teams just below this level and give opportunities for the top Associate sides to play Full Members more often. The future of women’s international cricket is looking very bright indeed.