Denmark captain Michael Pedersen led his side to a 30-run victory over the United States of America (USA) today at Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 (WCL Div. 3) in Hong Kong.
Carl Wright top scored with 43 against Denmark. Photo by Shiek Mohamed
Meanwhile, Oman made up for yesterday’s defeat by beating hosts Hong Kong by three wickets in a hard-fought game and Papua New Guinea (PNG) continued its winning ways when it defeated Italy by 32 runs.
In the lowest scoring fixture of the day, Denmark were put into bat first thing on a fine and sunny day at Mission Road and the top order put 50 on the board before opener Freddie Klokker departed for 24 after Orlando Baker rearranged his stumps.
It was then up to captain Pedersen to guide his side to a respectable total after fellow top order batsman Yasir Iqbal departed for 31 runs. Pedersen’s slow 123-ball 78 saw him anchor the innings for the side as none of his fellow Danes managed to score above 12 in the side’s innings.
Nobody particularly shone for the USA in the bowling department and the side put on a poor fielding display missing key opportunities. Asif Khan was the only bowler of note for the side while Usman Shuja and Orlando Baker cost the side some 79 runs with their bowling.
When the time came for USA to chase down the target, Carl Wright and Rashard Marshall proved to be the only batsmen to show some form with the duo adding 43 and 31 respectively. However, Steve Massiah’s side failed to fire and the in-form Pedersen removed four of the side with his slow left-arm bowling.
Pedersen wasn’t the only in-form bowler for the Denmark side with spinner Bobby Chawla aiding his captain in clearing up the USA middle and lower order. Chawla claiming the key wicket of Sushil Nadkarni while his captain saw off Lennox Cush and removed Marshall.
Earning his first man of the match award of the tournament, Pedersen was pleased with the side’s gritty performance. “I think in the first hour or so we played well making 40-odd runs and I was pleased with how Freddie Klokker and Yasir Iqbal performed. But once the newness of the ball had worn off and it began to lose some of its pace I think our batsmen found it harder to score runs, especially with the USA bowling so straight and not leaving much room for manoeuvre.
“I felt I had to really sit in and grind out my innings giving the others the opportunities so that we could make a decent total. I think we were also aided in making our total by some poor fielding by the USA who missed at least one sitter of a catch,” said the Dane.
Pedersen added his side’s game-plan, when it came to the bowling, was what really paid off for the team today. “The team had a game plan when we took to the field and once we’d taken the pace off the ball after the first 12 overs the USA started to come at the ball.
“Bobby’s bowling was brilliant today and as for myself, I think I was pretty lucky with some of my wickets with some good catches being taken by my fielders. This tournament is wide open now which I think is great. We weren’t the favourites in today’s game and today’s results show no team is unbeatable. I feel we’ve got ourselves accustomed to the conditions and are now playing the way we should be at this event,” he concluded.
PNG maintained its winning ways on the second day of the tournament when it beat Italy at Hong Kong Cricket Club with Jason Kila showing good skill with the bat to help the side on its way to 209 in the first innings.
Although Papua New Guineans batting was not particularly strong, the side were helped to their total by some sloppy bowling by the Italians with the European side’s bowlers delivering 24 wides.
The normally reliable opening bowler Gayashan Munasinghe proved expensive today bowling five wides on his way to claiming 2-43 in his nine overs but the star of the Italy attack proved to be Peter Petricola once again. The 27-year-old medium-fast bowler took four wickets including those of key middle-order batsmen Chris Kent and Kila Pala.
Italy’s batting failed to spark against the tight bowling of PNG and despite some good runs on the board from Hemantha Jayasena, Andy Northcote and Hayden Patrizi the side fell short of the target by some 32 runs.
PNG captain Rarua Dikana shone with the ball claiming 3-24 in just seven overs, including two maidens, with his medium pace bowling – taking the all important wickets of opener Northcote and middle-order danger-man Petricola.
Dikana said of today’s win, “Our batsmen are confident and did a good job spreading the load to make the total but perhaps didn’t perform as strongly as we know they can, but with a strong bowling unit we didn’t feel panicked about taking on Italy’s batting line up and we scored our second victory.
“The pitch was pretty bouncy this morning but it flattened out as when we bowled on it which saw the ball keep low which helped me in claiming at least two of my wickets which were leg-before. Tomorrow’s a rest day which means we can relax as a side and prepare for Tuesday and hopefully make it three out of three.”
Finally, in the tightest match of the day hosts Hong Kong lost out for the second time in a row, this time to a rejuvenated Oman side.
In the bright sunshine of Kowloon Cricket Club, Najeeb Amar’s side put on a respectable total of 266 after some strong batting from Hussain Butt who struck 81 of the side’s runs.
However, once again the home side failed to make any major batting partnerships in its innings and the middle-order not performing to a high enough standard when facing a strong Omani bowling attack.
The stand-out bowler for the Omanis was veteran spinner Khalid Rashid who managed to claim the scalps of Courtney Kruger and Butt to help his team on its way to cleaning up the Hong Kong side.
Oman’s batsmen didn’t waste any time when it came to scoring runs after lunch with opener Hemin Desai smashing his way to 62 in just 30 balls. The 33-year-old right-handed batsman smashed nine boundaries and three sixes before having his stumps removed by Nadeem Ahmed.
Vaibhav Wategaonkar added an important 68 but the star of the Oman innings was easily the side’s wicketkeeper-batsman Sultan Ahmed whose unbeaten 70 guided the team to victory.
Five of Oman’s batsmen failed to make higher than six runs after some tight and positive bowling by Hong Kong’s Irfan Ahmed and Aizaz Khan but the side missed opportunities in the final overs to dismiss Sultan. The 33-year-old combined with Amir Ali to hit the winning runs and award the Sultanate of Oman its first win of the tournament.
“It’s obviously disappointing not to win for a second time but the side hasn’t lost its confidence. We know we’ve got the ability and today’s game, like yesterday’s, came down to the last over,” said Hong Kong coach Charlie Burke.
“Our biggest problem is we’ve not had a big enough batting partnership in our innings and then we’ve gone on to bowl five or six poor overs which has allowed the opposition to get on top of us. We won’t let today’s result hold us back and along with the other results from today’s games the tournament is still wide open,” he added.
Man of the match Sultan said, “We have a great depth in our middle-order and today it paid off with everyone contributing throughout the 50 overs to get us over the line. We knew today’s match was important for both ourselves and Hong Kong and we wanted to give it our all, we made sure we were motivated for today’s match and it really paid off.
“We always focus on the coming match and not the next four matches and I think that has helped our focus today and hopefully it will help us after the rest day when we face Italy on Tuesday.”
Tomorrow is a rest day with play resuming on Tuesday.
Score summaries (Day Two):
At KCC: Hong Kong 266 all out, 50 overs (Kruger 40, Butt 81; Rasheed 3-37, Mehta 2-37)
Oman 267-7, 49 overs (Desai 62, Wategaonkar 68, Sultan 70 not out; Irfan 3-70)
Oman won by three wickets
At HKCC: Papua New Guinea 204 all out, 48.4 overs (Kila 46, Vare 28; Petricola 4-38)
Italy 172 all out, 43.2 overs (Northcote 28, Jayasena 30; Dikana 3-24, Kila 2-20, Nou 2-32)
PNG won by 32 runs
At Mission Road: Denmark 193-6, 50 overs (Michael Pedersen 78 not out, Yasir 31, Klokker 24; Asif 2-31)
USA 163 all out, 39.5 overs (Wright 43, Marshall 31; Michael Pedersen 4-35, Chawla 4-32)
Denmark won by 30 runs