Thailand won the Asia Cup opener by six runs, and India play them on Sunday

The Women’s Asia Cup opened in Dubai on Friday 28 August with a game that never got away from either side, and Thailand finished it six runs in front. They made 120 for 9 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, then kept Hong Kong, China to 114 for 7. India were not involved. They will be on Sunday, against the same Thailand side.

Chaiwai held the innings together

Thailand’s captain Naruemol Chaiwai top-scored with 43 off 31 balls, four fours and two sixes, and she made most of them while the innings was falling over at the other end. Nannapat Koncharoenkai added 27. Nobody else got going, which was largely down to Marina Lamplough, who bowled her four overs for 11 runs and took four wickets. Alison Siu picked up three for 37.

A total of 120 on a Dubai surface in late August is not a winning score on paper. It became one because Hong Kong could not find a partnership. Yasmin Daswani and Kary Chan both made 28, and both of them got out with the game still there to be won. Onnicha Kamchomphu finished with three for 27 and Phannita Maya took two for 22, and Thailand squeezed the last few overs well enough that 114 for 7 was as close as Hong Kong got.

Chaiwai was named player of the match. It is the sort of result that will not travel far outside the two dressing rooms, but it matters inside Group A, where only two of the four teams go through and Thailand already have two of them.

India start on Sunday

India play Thailand on Sunday 30 August at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, an 8pm start in India. Hong Kong, China follow on 3 September, and then the fixture the tournament is built around: India against Pakistan on 5 September, same ground, same time. Group B, with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the hosts United Arab Emirates, runs alongside it. The top two from each group reach the semi-finals, and the final is on 13 September.

Harmanpreet Kaur leads a 15-player squad with Smriti Mandhana as her deputy. Jemimah Rodrigues is not in it. She tore a hamstring during the Hundred and the grade of the tear ruled her out of both this tournament and the Asian Games, which leaves India’s middle order thinner than the selectors would have liked going into a title defence that is not really a defence at all.

India lost the 2024 final. Sri Lanka chased 166 in Dambulla and won by eight wickets with eight balls to spare, Harshitha Samarawickrama unbeaten on 69 and Chamari Athapaththu making 61 in front of her. It was Sri Lanka’s first Asia Cup and the first edition India had not won since 2018, when Bangladesh beat them in the final. India have seven titles from the nine editions played, and have reached every one of the nine finals.

What Sunday actually asks of India

India will start as heavy favourites, so the interesting question is less who wins than what India get out of it. With Rodrigues out, the middle order is the thing to watch. Bharti Fulmali, Gunalan Kamalini and Prema Rawat are all in the squad, and an opening fixture like this one is where a team finds out which of them it trusts before Pakistan on 5 September.

What Thailand showed on Friday is that they will make somebody work for it. They lost nine wickets, scored at exactly six an over, and defended it anyway. India ought to win on Sunday comfortably. Batting properly is what will make it look that way.

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