Ninety-Two Runs, Seven Wickets, Zero Extras: Pakistan Women Scrape Past Thailand in a Rain-Shrunk Quarter-Final

Thailand have spent a decade being the side everyone describes as plucky and nobody quite expects to win. On Thursday at Korogi Sports Park, in eleven overs of cricket squeezed out of a wet day, they came two balls from knocking Pakistan out of the Asian Games.

Pakistan Women got home by three wickets, having lost seven of them chasing 92. It is the sort of result that looks like a formality in a tournament table and felt like nothing of the kind on the field. The first quarter-final of the day, between Bangladesh Women and China Women, was abandoned at the same ground without a ball bowled; this one was cut to eleven overs a side and played out at something close to panic speed.

In an eleven-over innings, a batter facing 38 of the 66 deliveries is doing something unusual. Nannapat Koncharoenkai made 49 of Thailand's 91 and did it with seven fours and not a single six — the same method, at a much smaller scale, that produced the day's other notable hundred several thousand miles away in Bulawayo.

Thailand lost Natthakan Chantham in the second over and were 7 for 1. From there Koncharoenkai and Phannita Maya put on 65 in seven overs, which in a format this compressed is close to an entire innings. Naruemol Chaiwai then hit 10 from 3 to accelerate before falling, and Koncharoenkai was out in the eleventh over having done everything asked of her.

Fatima Sana took 2 for 22 from three and Nashra Sandhu 1 for 19 from two. Ninety-one on a wet-weather surface, in a knockout, was a competitive number and Thailand knew it.

Look at Pakistan's scorecard and the most extraordinary figure is not any of the scores. It is the extras column: 0.

Across 64 deliveries in a chase against a bowling attack under pressure, Thailand did not concede a wide, a no-ball, a bye or a leg-bye. Thailand's own innings had contained seven extras. In a chase this short, where fielding sides routinely give away six or eight and every one of them is a free run off the target, that is a remarkable piece of discipline. It very nearly won them the match.

Pakistan had to score every one of their 92 runs. Shawaal Zulfiqar's 25 from 14 gave them a start, Gull Feroza made 16, and Fatima Sana's 21 from 13 in the middle was the innings that kept them ahead of the rate. But wickets kept going: 36 for 1 became 47 for 4 inside six overs, and when Tuba Hassan fell off the last ball of the tenth over, Pakistan were 88 for 7 and needed four from the final over.

Onnicha Kamchomphu took 3 for 37 from three overs and Sunida Chaturongrattana 2 for 23 from two. The best figures on the ground belonged to Suleeporn Laomi — two overs, three runs, one wicket. Three runs from twelve balls in a chase of 92 is the kind of spell that ought to decide a knockout. It did not, by two deliveries.

Nisshin gave up very little cricket on Thursday. The first quarter-final was washed out entirely; this one was reduced to eleven overs a side and was, by the look of the scoring patterns, played on a surface that had been under covers for a good part of the day.

Ninety-one from eleven overs is a rate of 8.3 an over, which sounds modest until you notice that Thailand hit one six in the entire innings and Pakistan four. Nobody was clearing the ropes easily. The ball was not coming on, and both sides scored primarily through placement and running.

We did not preview the Asian Games quarter-finals. Had we done so, we would have made Pakistan comfortable favourites — a ranked Full Member side against an associate one — and we would have been right by three wickets and two balls, which is another way of saying we would have been right for the wrong reasons.

Pakistan Women go into the first semi-final on Sunday. Bangladesh Women advance from the abandoned first quarter-final and take the second, with their opponents to be decided by Friday's remaining quarter-finals — Malaysia Women against Sri Lanka Women, and Japan Women against India Women. The bronze medal match and the final both follow on September 22.

Thailand go home, which does not reflect what they did here. They out-bowled a Full Member side in a knockout, conceded nothing, and lost by the narrowest margin the format allows. Koncharoenkai's 49 and Laomi's two overs for three deserve to be remembered longer than the result will let them be.