Papua New Guinea looms tonight.
The USA women’s national team is on the brink of advancing to the Super Six at the Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier for the first time ever, days after they snapped a 12-game losing streak at the event with a win over Namibia. Papua New Guinea, their next opponent, nearly bungled a chase of 123 against Namibia after scoring 21 in the first over, reaching the target with two deliveries and three wickets to spare. Their openers possess immense strength, but a couple of wickets in the power play could create serious problems for them. The game starts at 10:15pm Eastern/7:15 Pacific and is available on ICC.tv in the United States.
The USA enters this game needing a win to advance, and, for perhaps the first time ever in this event, they are the favorites.
That very notion would have been far-fetched a month ago. It’s still technically not true based on the ICC Women’s T20I rankings, which have clearly been skewed by the USA not playing any WT20Is in the last six months of 2025. These young women with ages ranging from 16 (Saanvi Immadi) to 27 (Tara Norris) have defied expectations even as they have failed to capitalize on opportunities to upset Bangladesh and, most recently, Ireland. They are progressing up the learning curve, but they are still very much on it.
The USA’s 16-run loss to Ireland was full of “learning curve” moments. Isani Vaghela struggled to get her lines right in the 20th over of Ireland’s innings and was punished for - wait for it - 16 runs. During the chase, she went for a sweep against Aimee Maguire’s left-arm spin and was way too early on what looked like a topspinner that crashed into her off stump. Multiple batters showed a lack of urgency running between the wickets and missed chances to push for two runs and challenge Ireland’s fielders. Then, when they got behind in the chase, they channeled the urgency of that moment into attempts to slog the ball over fielders for big runs, which is how both Chetna Pagydyala and Pooja Ganesh got themselves out when they didn’t have the raw power to play those shots.
Their losses haven’t been about a lack of talent. If anything, the talent gap is small enough that, with good execution and decision-making, these games are winnable for the United States in the same way Loyola Chicago went to the Final Four in 2018. That is what has been lacking, and that comes down to a lack of high-level cricket for players that are still developing.
In the last two years, before coming to Nepal, the USA women’s team played 17 WT20Is. Of the group that faced Ireland, only Aditi Chudasama and Disha Dhingra played in all of them, and they still played half as much cricket as Norris and Ella Claridge in that span. Norris played 14 T20s in eight weeks last spring in the Women’s T20 Blast for Lancashire. Throw in the Hundred and the One-Day Cup and she has far more experience against high-level players. Claridge didn’t bat as much as Norris bowled, but she was still an everyday player for The Blaze and spent extensive time in a List A setup that puts her in a best-on-best environment. It’s not a shock that they’re two of the most important players to this side. Claridge knocked the second-highest score in the national team’s T20 history with a brisk 70 off 51 against Namibia. Norris has been one of, if not the best bowler in the tournament: she’s the only bowler with 3+ wickets who has an average, economy, and strike rate of 8.00 or lower.
Yes, they are the two oldest players in the squad, but age and experience are not strictly the same. They have a critical mass of applied knowledge that lets them approach situations in ways that best maximize their academic knowledge and technical skills. That applied knowledge sets them apart from their teammates because it’s something the other 13 players haven’t really had access to at any point.
So how do they get it?
Men’s cricket in the United States has a substantial competition window that starts in late May and ends in early October. If a player plays full regular season campaigns with an MLC and MiLC outfit, he’ll play 20 T20s in a summer against a mix of IPL-caliber imports, state-level Australian players, and peer competition in the domestic player pool. Throw in playoffs and that number could climb north of 25. The system is hardly perfect, but that’s a lot of cricket to pack into 4-5 months! It’s enough that, given a couple of years, players have enough cumulative experience to step into a national team setting and contribute because they’ve seen a lot of what they’re going to see in the upper echelon of the sport.
No such structure exists for US-based women. The women’s national championship, last held in 2024, was a grand total of seven games, three apiece for four squads plus a final. USA Cricket’s misguided obsession with “zones” at a time when there are barely enough players of sufficient caliber to fill out an A side leaves the country’s elite players wrecking middle schoolers while their peers are playing in much more sophisticated high-performance setups. Ireland’s system is not large, but it funnels the country’s premier players to the top and ensures they get competition against each other. They also played 70% more WT20Is than the USA over the last two years, not to mention players who get extra List A games in the English structure, like Orla Prendergast (The Blaze), Amy Hunter (Surrey), and Gaby Lewis (Lancashire). They enter major tournaments like this one much farther along the learning curve, which is why they were able to do things like rotate the strike and rebuild after Norris wrecked their power play or play Norris out in the sixth over rather than try to force their way through their opponent’s best bowler. Their experience taught them they had plenty of time to build a defendable score, and they were right!
The financial commitment needed to close that experience gap on international cricket alone would bankrupt most Associate Member boards, and USA Cricket’s next leadership group will not be in a hurry to repeat that process. Options exist elsewhere with outside investor dollars, though. MLC is exploring spinning up a women’s competition with a soft launch as early as this year, which will be challenging, but would have immense benefit to the top end of the player pool. There have been discussions about a possible entry in the Women’s Caribbean Premier League as early as 2026 that would require seven USA players in the playing XI. With some back-of-the-napkin math, six games in each competition would be 12 total; throw in two or three bilateral series and a minor international tournament, and that’s probably enough cricket to give this young talent pool the exposure it needs to high-level competition to take the next step.
It’s easy for me to spend other people’s money, though. While women’s sports are very much part of the cultural zeitgeist right now and a major point of emphasis for the ICC, it can take a while for those investments to bear fruit. The WNBA needed 30 years to get to the point where the players felt comfortable asking for stuff; women’s soccer and hockey failed multiple times before their current leagues found success. This will require serious commitment from enthusiastic parties, and it will pay off on the field long before it pays off on the balance sheet. But it will pay off on the field, and that’s more apparent than ever now thanks to the last two weeks in Nepal.
But one thing at a time. Papua New Guinea looms tonight.