This is not the first time the team in question has ended up in an embarrassing situation
In an ICC Men's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier A match, Mongolia ended up in another embarrassing situation, as the team got all-out in merely ten runs. Played in Bangi on September 5, Mongolia was put to bat first, but the team could not spend more than ten overs on the pitch. Harrowing was the fact that none of the batsmen could score more than two runs.
Four players went home with ducks, whereas the remaining batters could score either one or two runs, not a single run more, leading Mongolia to pose a target of only ten runs for opponent Singapore. The East Asian nation recorded the joint lowest score, matching the tally of 10 runs scored by the Isle of Man last year against Spain.
From Singapore's end, Harsh Bharadwaj was the star man who bowled four overs, out of which two were maidens. He conceded only three runs, registering an economy of 0.75. Not to forget, he picked up six wickets to dismantle the Mongolian battling line-up.
Indeed, Mongolia is not a cricket-playing nation, but the overly embarrassing performance has got them trending on social media platforms. Unfortunately, this was not the first time Mongolia had ended up in such a situation.
Worst decision by @ICC that giving Mongolia T20I status. ICC should protect T20I Cricket standards. pic.twitter.com/w5lUx07Bgy
— Don Cricket 🏏 (@doncricket_) September 5, 2024
If we take a look at the lowest innings totals posted in T20Is, Mongolia's name appears several times on the list.
On May 8, 2024, in a T20I match played at Sano, Japan batted first and posted a whopping score of 217 runs, losing seven wickets in 20 years. The Mongolian bowlers had no answer to Japan's bombardment of sixes and fours. The batting line-up was not better as the team, in response, could only score 12 runs in 8.2 overs, losing all its wickets and the game by 205 runs.
In the same series, Mongolia's tour of Japan, the East Asian nation scored another of its lowest totals. In the fourth T20I game, Mongolia batted first and scored merely 26 runs. Japan ended the game in 1.2 overs only, scoring the required 27 runs, with Lachlan Yamamoto-Lake adding 18 runs in six deliveries.
In an ICC Men's T20 World Cup qualifier game played on August 31, 2024, Mongolia faced Hong Kong. Batting first, once again, the Mongolian batsmen could not find a way to stick to the crease and kept going back to the pavilion within quick intervals. After a struggle of 14.2 overs, Mongolia could only post a target of 17 runs. For the counterpart Hong Kong, the chase was a walk in the park, as the team scored 18 runs in merely 1.4 overs, losing only one wicket.
Mongolia has a long way to go, just like other minnow cricket-playing nations that have just started playing cricket. However, on some occasions, even full-time cricket-playing nations with global presence have ended with only double-digit inning totals in T20Is. West Indies' 45 against England in 2019 and New Zealand's 60 against Bangladesh are two incidents that we can recall.
