Thai women return to cricket on an African tour

For the first time since the pandemic, players are set to tune in to more than 50 World Cup qualifiers in December

Thailand will have much-needed match time before the 50 World Cup qualifiers before the end of the year as they tour Zimbabwe and South Africa to spread limited games from 15 August.

The Zimbabwean section has four one-day players and three T20I teams against the national team, all in Harare, before they continue to South Africa to play five one-day and three T20 matches against Emerging XI at Potchefstream.

“It’s our first tour to Africa and also our first after the World Cup, so it’s interesting to see how we cope on the new continent and adapt to foreign conditions,” said Shan Kader, Thailand’s cricket development manager. “All the team members are pretty excited and look really good in training, so let’s see how it turns out on this tour.”

In the global qualifier, three teams will be selected to make it to the top seven at next year’s 50-year-old World Championships in New Zealand. The qualifier was originally scheduled to be hosted in Sri Lanka in July 2020, but has now been postponed to November-December 2021, and Zimbabwe, one of the participants, plans to host the event.

Team: Naruemol Chaiwai (Captain), Nannapat Khoncharoenkrai (Deputy Captain), Nattaya Boochatham, Ratanaporn Padunglerd, Chanida Sutthiruang, Natthakan Chantham, Suornornin Tippoch, Rosenanee Kanoh, Wongpaka Liengprachcha, Onch Sunida Chat