Thailand’s women cricketers enhanced their growing reputation in the sport after they recently beat China by seven wickets at the Royal Chiang Mai Golf Course Ground to complete a perfect five wins out of five and be deservedly crowned as the first winners of the ACC Women’s Premier.
This was a new competition played by the six leading teams in ACC women’s cricket over a longer distance and so Thailand have now won competitions in 40-over and 25-over formats, as well as also making a name for themselves on the world stage in the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in Ireland. More than ever they now deserve to be recognized as one of the major teams in the world of women’s cricket and they will now have another chance to play in an ICC qualifying tournament.
Thailand’s women took the ACC Women’s Championship title with a resounding win over China.
Thailand and China had both won their first four matches in the ACC Women’s Premier 2014, which had been played on the three idyllic grounds that Chiang Mai is lucky to possess, so the last match of the competition between the best two teams was expected to bring the tournament to a fitting conclusion. In the event Thailand dominated the match even though China’s openers Sun Mengyao and Zhang Mei shared a steady partnership of 39 and their second wicket did not fall until the score had reached 57.
But Thailand bowled with such an impressive level of accuracy that only 18 runs came from the first ten overs without any extras being conceded and the wickets began to fall. Sornnarin Tippoch took two for 16 in her eight overs, Nattakan Chantam and Ratanaporn Padunglerd also claimed two wickets, while Chanida Sutthiruang and Nattaya Boochatham conceded less than two runs an over. China were restricted to only one boundary in their entire innings as they were dismissed for exactly 100 in the 39th over.
Thailand were looking to be positive in their response as Nattakan Chantam was promoted to open the innings and she immediately cut off-spinner Zhou Haijie for four behind point. She then pulled China’s fastest bowler for six on to the nearby golf course and followed with an off-drive for four and hit another boundary off the leg-spinner Han Lili to race to 27.
Nattaya Boochatham played 3 masterful innings in the competition.
Although she was then stumped with the total on 33, she had done her job and taken the match away from China. Nattaya Boochatham came to the crease and quietly made an unbeaten 23 to steer Thailand to victory to confirm her reputation as a high quality player in the longer form of the game.
Naremol Chaiwai also made 27, and did a good job in opening the innings without having the power of Nattakan or the finesse of Nattaya. It was appropriate that captain fantastic Sornnarin Tippoch scored the winning runs as Thailand reached 101 for 3 to win by seven wickets.
Nattakan Chantam was named player of the match, Sornnarin Tippoch bowler of the tournament and Chanida Sutthiruang player of the tournament as Thailand dominated the awards ceremony. Hong Kong’s Yip Sze Wan was chosen as batter of the tournament but this could have easily have been given to Nattaya Boochatham as she played three masterful innings in this competition.
Thailand had been surprise winners of the ACC Women’s Championship last year but this time they proved themselves to be the best team in the competition by a considerable margin and they are now ready to move on to even better things.
