Shillington, Lewis lead Ireland to open the tournament with a win

This was the first match of the Qualifiers. Favourites Ireland won the toss and elected to bowl first. Thailand too was padded up after the hard practice they got in the Asia Cup. Chantam and Chaiwai opened the innings for Thailand, but Isobel Joyce struck on the first ball of the innings sending Chantam to the pavilion. Boochatham and Chaiwai began steadily building up the innings with the former scoring heavily. She got dismissed after scoring 41, her highest T20I score.

Boochatham and Chaiwai togetherly played till 11th over and shared 53 runs partnership. After the ball of Boochatham's wicket, Thailand's innings experienced a downfall finishing with 92 at the fall of 7 wickets as none of the other batters was able to score in double figures. O'Reilly picked up 3 wickets while Isobel Joyce grabbed 2.

Ireland started slowly and were able to reach 36 in the powerplay at the loss of Cecelia Joyce to Tippoch. Lewis and Shillington scored a 31 run partnership before Shillington (38) and Lewis (7) departed off consecutive balls to Tippoch with the score 64/3. Irish skipper Laura Delany and the experienced Isobel Joyce kept their calm helping Ireland reach the target in 16.2 overs.

For Ireland, Shillington top scored with 38 while the only positive sign for Thailand was it's skipper Tippoch picking up all 3 wickets.