Thailand Women

Seventeen straight Twenty20 wins between July 2018 and August 2019, a run that beat Australia's previous world record and took in scalps from full members Pakistan and Ireland. The same generation had already made the team the team to beat in Asia, taking the Asian Cricket Association Women's Championship in 2013, 2014 and 2017, and pushed the side to a first Women's T20 World Cup in Australia in 2020 — the first Southeast Asian associate side to get there.

None of it looked likely in July 2007, when open trials pulled in players from softball and track and field and the new side lost both its first two One Day Internationals, against Bangladesh in Malaysia. Sornnarin Tippoch took the captaincy the following year as the Cricket Association of Thailand began contracting players, and the first win arrived in 2009 at the Asian Championship, a 23-run defeat of Nepal before Hong Kong took the final.

Nattakan Chantam became the first Thai player past 1,500 runs, and Nattaya Boochatham the first to 100 wickets; Naruemol Chaiwai has captained since 2021. The "Smiling Assassins" nickname, coined by a 2019 article playing on the "Land of Smiles" tag and the side's attacking cricket, has stuck.