Thailand recovered from a poor start to beat Bhutan at Gymkhana in their first match in the ACC Women’s Premier 2014 competition. Thailand’s women were looking to make a good start to the tournament but lost both openers with only six runs on the board.
The ACC Women’s Premier competition sees the best six teams at this level playing in a league with matches of 40 overs in length so there was plenty of time for Thailand to rebuild their innings and number three Nattaya Boochatham played the sheet anchor role to perfection as she batted for 166 minutes and faced 109 balls for her unbeaten 52 which saw Thailand to a total of 159 as they were bowled out in the last over.
The Thailand team would have hoped to have posted a bigger total than that but Nattaya was soon in action again as she took a wicket with her first balls and the bowlers were able to exert pressure on Bhutan who were only able to score five singles off the bat in the first 12 overs.
It soon became clear that Thailand would easily defend their score and young leg-spinner Suleeporn Laomi was given a chance to bowl and she took three wickets towards the end. Bhutan were bowled out for 80 with Nattaya completing a good day’s work by taking the last wicket as Thailand won by 79 runs.
In the day’s other match China, losing finalists to Thailand in last year’s ACC Women’s Championship, were just too strong for Hong Kong as they won by 30 runs. China had been bowled out for only 107 as Leslie Dela Pena took 5 for 24 and Clare Crewsdon 4 for 12, but Hong Kong could make only 77 in reply, Zhou Haijie returning figures of 5 for 8.
Four teams, Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Nepal, now all have a victory apiece after the first four matches, so there should be plenty of excitement ahead in the next week. Thailand play Nepal in their second match tomorrow, while China face Iran.