Three Things I Learned From USA-W's Trip to Nepal

If the Women’s T20 World Cup were the same size as the men’s, the United States and Scotland both would have qualified, and their winner-likely-take-all final match in Kirtipur would have been unnecessary. It could have even been a group stage match in England this summer.

Is that salt? You bet it’s salt! The ICC dresses up penny-pinching and calls it “standard of play,” not willing to spring for the cost of gender parity even as it tells us how important women’s cricket is to its future. Global qualifiers are ass, hiding entertaining cricket away from mainstream audiences and preventing the sport from reaching new countries that might follow their flag into fresh sporting frontiers. The chance to jump-start women’s cricket after India finally broke Australia’s stranglehold on it will just have to wait until 2028.

The USA women will also have to wait a little longer to jump into the cricket mainstream, but they took a massive leap forward in Nepal in January the Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier. After snapping a 12-game losing streak in the group stages, they also beat Papua New Guinea and a well-regarded Thailand side to finish as the third-best Associate Member in what was, unfortunately, a two-team race.

They will only be going to the World Cup in England this summer if they buy tickets, but they took on a massive challenge and defied even the most outlandish expectations to push themselves to the brink. They learned a lot, and so did I, which I have distilled into an SEO-friendly numbered list! (which isn’t numbered in this piece. Don’t think too much about it, just go watch Jenny Nicholson's Galactic Starcruiser video again).

Think of the critical positions of a modern cricket team. Successful teams have a handful of players the team is built around:

-An explosive opener-An anchor at 3 or 4 (usually 3)-A middle-overs finisher-A frontline pacer-A spinner who can win the middle phase-If not accounted for above, the wicketkeeper

The USA demonstrated a lot of these over their two weeks in Nepal, or, if not finished products, at least prototypes. Tara Norris was very much the finished product as the frontline pacer, finishing as the tournament’s leading wicket-taker and validating her decision to pass up on a WPL contract with UP Warriorz (who, as it turns out, are very bad this year!). Ella Claridge led the tournament with eight stumpings and had the second-most dismissals by a ‘keeper and also knocked the second-highest score ever for the US in WT20Is with her 70(51) against Namibia. Ritu Singh was electric with the bat, not always staying long but hitting for a respectable average (24) at a whopping 165 strike rate in a format where strike rate is crucial. She bowled some handy off-spin against Thailand, as well, though that’s not really her game. She is that finisher, and she could even stand to bat at five instead of six.

Not every piece was accounted for, and not every piece accounted for was perfect. Spin largely faltered and exposed the lack of a true fifth bowler, while Claridge played some downright silly shots, getting out on a ramp behind square twice in the group stage when the team really could have used a score from her. Those things happen, but as this team begins to build toward 2028 and potentially reclaiming ODI status in 2029, the more holes that are filled early, the better off the whole program can be.

Astute readers will notice I have yet to mention the openers. About that…

My absolute favorite phrase I picked up while living in the Upper Midwest was uff da. It’s an expression of dismay, and it’s usually reserved for bad news. Pronounce the “u” like the “oo” sound in “root.”

For example: the USA’s opening pair of Disha Dhingra and Chetna Pagydyala combined for a strike rate of 95, hit no sixes, and Dhingra was at the crease past the fifth over once in the World Cup Qualifier.

Uff da.

They weren’t the only ones with issues, though. The USA hit just 15 sixes in the tournament: nine by Ritu, one each by Claridge, Norris, Aditi Chudasama, and Pooja Ganesh, and two for Gargi Bhogle who only batted twice. Sobhana Mostari of Bangladesh hit 12 maximums just by herself!

Boundaries are the critical element of strike rate, and boundaries should be most abundant in two places: the power play and the death overs. While Ritu was able to give the team a boost in the third phase with a grip it and rip it mindset, the power play was sorely lacking. The United States averaged just 36 runs for one wicket with the benefit of fielding restrictions while their opponents averaged 47 runs for 1.4 wickets. Bangladesh scored 54, the Netherlands scored 57, and Scotland scored 75. Yes, those teams all lost extra wickets early, but they also scored nearly two overs’ worth of surplus runs compared to the USA’s power play run rate. That’s a potentially decisive disparity against any opponent, and one that’s not hard to make up for over subsequent wickets when teams trust the batters behind them to make scores.

It’s vital that batters step to the crease with an attacking intent. Practice is part of that. I’m reading Ian Renshaw’s book Dynamic Coaching right now, and he talks at length about building practice sessions to allow players to visualize themselves in competition scenarios like the power play and allowing them to find solutions to problems they’re likely to face when the heat is on. The other part of it is the confidence that they can hit the ball in the air for runs, which comes from physical strength.

Both of these are things that USA Cricket can control with investment.

I wouldn’t know enough to question anything about Hilton Moreeng’s methodology, but I would flatly question how much time he actually gets with these players. More cricket means more training camps, more training camps means more practice time, and that practice time is just as vital as the games themselves. The United States is also profoundly saturated with both established and aspiring strength and conditioning coaches who would relish the challenge to build a robust program to enable superior running, fielding, and, pertinent to my point, power hitting in cricket, which is a whole new frontier in the United States. Go find one and let them tap into this team’s athletic potential.

Underscoring the above, what we saw this team do, the massive step forward they took, was with little to no real help. They hadn’t played internationally in six months before going to Nepal, had no meaningful domestic competition (except Norris and Claridge in England), and their board got suspended and went bankrupt months before they got on the plane to Kathmandu. I’ve written about it before, but imagine what they can do when people start caring.

They need a place to play. High-level domestic cricket that brings the best players in the country together in the same environment for a month. More bilateral series. With support from a serious board, with support from investors ready to explore the potential of women’s cricket, this team can punch way above its weight as an Associate Member. The drive is there, the raw talent is there, but it takes a village to build a cricket team, and the USA women have had, at best, a Potemkin village backing them up. 2026 is the year to build something real.

Is this finally the moment women’s cricket takes hold? We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m a lot more hopeful than I was 34 days ago.