KUALA LUMPUR – The national women’s Twenty20 (T20) cricket squad hope to gain more international exposure and go one step higher in the future.
Team captain Mas Elysa Yasmin Zulkifli said they need to compete abroad at least once a month compared to an average of three to four times per year.
“If we get extra exposure playing overseas even better, we want to gain experience, collect T20 International Cricket Council (ICC) ranking points and move up from our current position of number 27 to be in the top 20 one day.
“When we compete internationally, we will gain more knowledge and game sense. From there, we can learn how to control various situations on the field, especially when we face the top teams,” she told Bernama after the final match of the Malaysia-Nepal bilateral series, here, today.
Nepal won the fifth and final match of the series, which began on May 29, by three wickets at the Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD)-Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Cricket Oval in Bangi here.
Malaysia had earlier won the first and fourth matches while Nepal took the second and third games of the bilateral series.
Commenting on Malaysia’s performance in the series, the 22-year-old cricketer said she was pleased to see her team improving with each game, especially in their batting.
She was also quite satisfied with Malaysia’s bronze-medal achievement at the recently-concluded 2023 SEA Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, adding that she felt that they managed to close the gap on eventual champions Thailand.
“I can feel the gap between us and Thailand is getting closer, just that we failed to capitalise on two great chances en route to losing by 12 runs to Thailand during the group stage at the SEA Games, but I am confident we will be able to beat them soon,” she said.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Cricket Association (MCA) chief operating officer Dinesh Muthuraman admitted that they would need to pump in more money, via investments and sponsorships, to ensure the national women’s team can gain more international exposure. – Bernama
