Even as the West Indies chased down a stiff target of 250 with 9 deliveries to spare and levelled the T20 series in Ranchi,  the news came that in another part of the world at the qualifiers for the T20 World Cup,  Mongolia were dismissed for 13 runs in response to Thailand’s score of 192/2. That, of course, is not the lowest score in this format. That dubious record belongs to Ivory coast who were bowled out for just 7 runs against Nigeria. Mongolia in 2024 had got only 10 runs against Singapore in another T20 international. Yes, these games are called internationals since one country’s team is playing against another country’s team.  The question is not whether they should be called internationals but whether there should be some sort of minimum standard before stats from these mismatched games are considered for records.

When a team is dismissed for such paltry scores, the bowler’s stats can only be bettered when the emerging ICC Associate member countries play against each other. To equate it with the stats when full member country teams play against each other is simply not fair.  The glaring difference in standards means that records will belong to players who most of the cricketing world has never heard of before and perhaps likely to never hear of again.