United Arab Emirates Women

Namibia was where the biggest silverware came in September 2024, when the United Arab Emirates beat Namibia and Zimbabwe to take the tri-series title on the road — at the time their largest achievement in the game. The Asia qualifying route has been kinder still: a place at the ICC Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier came in 2021 and again in 2023, and by 2024 the side had gone further than either of those campaigns, reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup Qualifier itself.

None of it looked likely on the first day out. On 11 July 2007, in Johor against Bangladesh at the ACC Women's Tournament, the team was bowled out for nine runs. Esha Oza was not there for that innings, but she became the player the rest of the side's batting has been built around since, finishing as the all-time leading run-scorer in T20 internationals with 3,126 runs between 2018 and 2025.

Within the Gulf, the rivalry that matters most is with Oman and Bahrain, and the GCC Women's Twenty20 Championship gave the UAE back-to-back titles in 2014 and 2015. The Dubai International Cricket Stadium, capacity 25,000, is both home ground and training base, run out of the Emirates Cricket Board's academy in Dubai Sports City. In blue and white, and with ODI status granted in May 2025, the side now sits above nine figures in one column that matters most to a bowler: Vaishnave Mahesh has taken 115 wickets for the team.