This is one area where Wikipedia is more informative than Cricinfo.
With the conclusion of the qualifying rounds, Bangladesh and Thailand join the “big 8” to make up the 10 teams.
Whatever you need to know is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_ICC_Women%27s_T20_World_Cup
Also see the results of the 2018 championship, when India lost in the semi-finals to England, who in turn lost to Australia in the final:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_ICC_Women%27s_World_Twenty20
The Malian women’s T20I team has been making headlines all over the cricket world (not only in Bamako and famed Timbuktu) for their abject defeats.
Earlier we have looked at the worst defeats of men’s T20I teams.
The worst defeat in a limited overs match is measured by either 1) runs or 2) balls remaining when the target is reached.
One can also look at 3) lowest scores by runs 4) highest scores by runs conceded
And as a stretch: 5) least balls in an innings.
We now look at the records of women’s T20Is as on 28-06-2019:
Losses by runs (100 and above):
We see that the top three defeats were sustained by Mali, with China and Lesotho a little behind. We will see much more of Mali in the remaining part of this post.
Even some “respectable” teams such as South Africa, WI and Sri Lanka can be found here.
Losses by balls remaining (72 or more):
These are all the cases where a target was chased down in 8 overs or less. In two cases only 4 balls were enough.
As you may guess, the Mali team holds the top three positions. Mozambique and Fiji are next in line. The only “respectable” team here is Ireland.
Lowest scores (30 or less):
The three lowest scores are by Mali in the span of three days in June 2019. Note that they did improve to 30/9 in 20 overs. China is also here with its record of 14 set earlier in 2019. Even Bangladesh has a score of 30.
Least balls in an innings (72 or less):
Mali again, though they took less balls to score 14 than their 6. Mexico, China and Kuwait give them company.
And finally
Highest opposing totals (190 and above):
Note that almost all of these are in the first innings.
Mali yet again in 1st, 2nd and 4th place although South Africa is in 3rd and 5th place. Many other “respectable” teams have been at the receiving end, including India against England in 2018.
You can guess why those who follow statistics may be planning to visit Timbuktu. While this is supposes to be in an area affected by terrorism, you can at least get to Mali’s capital Bamako with a single stop at Paris or Addis Ababa. With luck, you can reach there within 18 hours from Delhi.
Over the last year, the ICC has decided to give T20I status to ANY match between men’s sides (as well as women’s sides) from countries whose cricket boards are part of ICC. This is regardless of cricketing ability.
This also means that all T20Is starting from 2018-2019 (for women’s matches) and 2019 for men’ s matches are included in official statistics as well as official rankings.
You can see statistics on http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html or similar sites.
And ICC rankings can be seen here: http://www.relianceiccrankings.com/test/date-specific.php for player rankings
and http://www.espncricinfo.com/rankings/content/page/211271.html for team rankings.
One expected outcome was very one-sided matches, such as this:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/25749943/all-14-china-slump-lowest-women-t20i-total
in which China was all out for 14 in 10 overs, in reply to UAE’s 203/3 in 20 overs. China’s efforts included 6 ducks and an unbeaten 0.
From the scorecard http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/19111/scorecard/1171353/china-women-vs-united-arab-emirates-women-group-a-thailand-womens-t20-smash-2018-19
we see that China at least has all or most of the players from their own country, while UAE’s team seems to include players from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka with a token local player (much like the UAE’s men’s teams of the past).
Knowing the Chinese, they will gradually get better and will probably be challenging established teams after a few years. At the time of writing in May 2019, you can see that UAE is ranked 16th and China 75th (out of 79). China is one of the 6 teams with zero points.
If this is a mockery of international cricket, there is a still bigger mockery when the national team of a Western European country entirely consists of South Asians. And that is true of men’s cricket as well. This will be covered next.
abn397 