From the hill-country to the WACA – the story of Thailand's rise

Simply reaching a World Cup is astonishing for Thailand, 15 years after they started women’s cricket. Their Indian coach tells JAMES COYNE they have plans to compete

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Ten years ago now, an eye-opening film, Out of the Ashes, was made about Afghanistan’s remarkable rise to the men’s T20 World Cup. If there isn’t a budding documentary-maker out in the Thai hill-country uncovering the genesis of this team, then someone’s missed a trick.

In 1983, Puttivat Poshyanonda returned to Bangkok from boarding school in Sussex and started the first ethnically Thai cricket team in a mainly expat set-up. But it wasn’t until the mid-2000s that Mohideen Kader, who played for Poshyanonda’s Thai Cricket Club, began a development drive outside the traditional moneyed circles.

Two of the gems turned up by the Cricket Association of Thailand were Sornnarin Tippoch, Nattaya Boochatham, daughters of relatively poor farmers in areas with no cricketing heritage – but a useful grounding in softball. Since then, Tippoch and Boochatham, both 33, have played virtually every game in the 12-year history of the Thailand women’s team.

Nattakan Chantam was a little luckier to grow up in a tourist town and had early exposure to plastic-ball cricket before she debuted, aged 13, in Thailand’s maiden international tournament in Malaysia. She is now the team’s most reliable batsman.

Harshal Pathak, Thailand’s coach since November 2018, was not afraid to put his players through some fairly punishing training in preparation for their first World Cup. In a training camp in Pathak’s home city of Pune in India, Chantam – known as ‘Jeans’ – was paired with a batting buddy, Harshad Khadiwale, who has 12 first-class hundreds for Maharashtra.

Pathak would send the players into the nets or open-wicket practice tasked with defending 40 off 24 balls against first-class men’s players who were told not to hold back, launching sixes back hard in their direction. All this suggests that Thailand will hold up against an assault from a Nat Sciver or Lizelle Lee better than you might imagine.

Pathak’s mantra has been to inculcate them with the in-game judgement to compete at the top level. “I saw plenty of talent when I arrived,” he says. “There’s the skill of batting, which they were pretty good on. But there’s also the art of batting – knowing what to do when.

“My aim is within three years for Thailand to be one of the best batting sides in women’s cricket – because that’s the hardest of cricket’s three skills to develop in emerging nations. You want to see games of 160-plus in T20, don’t you?”

^{Thailand impressed against West Indies in their first game of the tournament, albeit in defeat}

Thailand’s batsmen lack the power of other teams, but they have solid techniques, scamper between the wickets and look to deflect cannily. The attack is chock full of tidy off-spinners. Suleeporn Laomi, a leggie developed in the Big Bash Rookie Programme and ICC Women’s Global Development camps in Australia, without ever playing a Big Bash game, offers some variety.

Thailand are in Australia because they upended an Ireland side in transition during the T20 World Cup Qualifier last summer. Their trump card in Scotland was Chanida Sutthiruang’s hooping in-duckers, which crashed onto many a batsman’s stumps – and earned her the ICC Emerging Women’s Player of the Year award.

“That’s Chanida’s asset,” says Pathak. “Every team will be doing their research on video. But it’s one thing knowing what’s coming – you still have to play the ball.”

A tour to Australia before Christmas to play women’s state sides has crystallised a few of Pathak’s plans – and knocked some of the awe out of the players.

“Our [bowling] lines are going to be absolutely crucial, because these will be beautiful, hard decks. The fielding will have to be very smart – cutting off angles on very fast outfields. We’ll need to be street-smart cricketers. And with the bat we’ll need to show both intent and calmness while batting.”

It’s in the field where Thailand will win hearts. They will throw themselves around, hurl down the stumps and bow respectfully to umpires, opposition and crowd – catnip for the ICC’s social media.

Thailand don’t need to win any games to achieve something special. Just putting one or two Full Member nations on the ropes would be the biggest fillip for the Associate game – a corner of world cricket forever beholden to spreadsheets signed off in Dubai.