The Cambodian women’s cricket team departed from the Kingdom on Monday evening to take part in the inaugural Cambodia–Singapore Women’s Friendship Cup 2025, and will return on August 17.
The leadership of the Cambodia Cricket Federation shared their determination to bring home good results and gain valuable experience ahead of their next international appearance, at the 33rd SEA Games in Thailand this December.
Fifteen players and two coaches made the trip.
Nou Sophal, the federation’s secretary-general, noted that this is the first time the women’s cricket team has competed internationally since participating in the 2023 SEA Games at home in Cambodia.
He acknowledged that the women’s team did not perform well in their first appearance at the 2023 games because they lacked sufficient experience. However, through ongoing training and domestic competitions until now, he hoped the team would achieve good results in Singapore.
“All of these players took part in the 2023 SEA Games, and they have been training diligently before heading to Singapore. Therefore, we hope they will gain valuable international experience from this first outing — and perhaps return with a victory,” he said.
They will face Singapore in two formats — three matches of T20I and two matches of T10, each of the matches recognised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). Cambodia may host similar bilateral friendlies in the future, once they gain enough experience.
“If we gain the experience to compete at this level, the Cambodia Cricket Federation could host bilateral matches with other ICC member countries — of which there are almost 180. This means this first international competition is very important for our women’s team,” explained Sophal.
“This friendship match with Singapore is crucial because it will give our team more experience. If we win this competition, we hope our team can play even better at the SEA Games at the end of the year and aim to win medals for the nation,” he added.
Coach Nirmaljit Singh admitted that Singapore team is at a higher level because Singapore joined the ICC earlier than Cambodia and has more international experience.
However, he asserted that over the past year, the squad has shown remarkable improvement.
“In preparing for this trip to Singapore, our players have trained hard, and I believe they will do well,” he said.
He was asked how confident he was about Cambodia’s chances.
“In sports, we can’t predict the outcome ahead of time. Sometimes strong teams win, but sometimes weaker teams can also beat stronger ones. Our main goal and determination for this trip is to win,” he replied.
Captain Pech Pisa expressed her strong determination to achieve good results, while acknowledging her and her teammates’ bitter past experience against Singapore — losing five straight friendship matches before the 2023 SEA Games, and then losing all four events they competed in during the SEA Games itself.
“Before, our team was too inexperienced, so we lost. But now we’ve improved a lot. That’s why this time in Singapore, we must try our best to win, to regain our pride. We have to win so we can move forward, especially as we prepare for the SEA Games at the end of this year,” she said.
