THE ROAD TO THE NEXT ICC WOMEN’S T20 WORLD CUP STARTS HERE FOR THAILAND

THE ROAD TO THE NEXT ICC WOMEN’S T20 WORLD CUP STARTS HERE FOR THAILAND

There are exciting times ahead for Thailand’s women cricketers over the next few months as they play in three highly competitive T20I international tournaments against teams from across the world as well as competing in the SEA Games which are being hosted by Thailand in December where they will be looking to confirm their pre-eminence in South East Asia and win gold medals in 10-over and 20-over cricket competitions. The most important step in their journey will be to head to Nepal in January to attempt to qualify for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup for the second time.

Thailand Senior Women have a new head coach at the helm in South African Peter-John Jansen who played domestic cricket in South Africa before becoming a coach for Free State Cricket and he has also worked with the South African emerging team and South Africa Under 19s. He has already spent some quality time with the Thailand girls as he led them in a High Performance Camp in South Africa.

Now it is time for competitive cricket as Thailand are competing in the Quad Cup at TCG in Bangkok which is a women’s quadrangular tournament involving Thailand, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Namibia. Matches start on 14^th November and it is a round-robin competition where all four teams play each other once over three days.

Thailand are the highest rated team as they stand at 11^th place in the Women’s T20I rankings and won the ICC T20 Women’s Asian Qualifier held in May 2025, but Scotland who are ranked 12^th actually took part in the last edition of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in UAE in 2024 but had been lacking international cricket in recent times.

Papua New Guinea ranked in 13^th won the East-Asia Pacific Qualifier held in Fiji in September while Namibia ranked in 17^th place were runners up to Zimbabwe in the Africa Qualifier held in Namibia also in September so we have four outstanding teams playing in Bangkok in the coming week.

All four of these teams contesting the Quad Cup will be heading to Nepal in January 2026 to take part in the Global Qualifier for the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup held in England so the Quad Cup should be a very exciting tournament as well as being a fantastic lead-up to the ICC Women’s Emerging Nations Trophy also held in Bangkok with matches starting on 20^th November.

Thailand, Scotland, Papua New Guinea and Namibia will be joined by Netherlands, UAE, Uganda and Tanzania and four matches will be played each day with two apiece being staged by TCG and AIT. This is effectively a tournament for the next eight highest ranked teams after the ten teams who played in the last ICC Women’s Championship with Zimbabwe now promoted to play in the next edition.

Thailand are also the top seed in this competition so the next three weeks will see them take part in some seriously competitive cricket and they will be looking to confirm their status as the best of the emerging nations in Women’s Cricket.

December will then see them look to defend the gold medals they won in 10-over and 20-over cricket when the last SEA Games was held in Malaysia. In the New Year they will be heading to Nepal for the Global Qualifier for the next ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and no fewer than four places are available to the 10 competing teams so the pathway for Thailand to travel to England next year to take part in their second World Cup is clearly laid out.