Hong Kong beat Papua New Guinea (PNG) by four wickets in the final of Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 3 (WCL Div.3) at the Kowloon Cricket Club in Hong Kong on Saturday.
Durale Forrest had 1 for 28 and struck 28 in a losing effort. Photo courtesy ICC
Having been set a target by PNG of 203, Hong Kong claimed victory after a superb performance by teenager Mark Chapman which set the side up for victory. By virtue of reaching the final, both Hong Kong and PNG joined Namibia, Bermuda, Uganda and hosts United Arab Emirates in Pepsi ICC WCL Div. 2 to be hosted in Dubai from 8 to 15 April.
Elsewhere, Oman defeat Italy by eight wickets in the third-fourth play-off at Hong Kong Cricket Club while Denmark beat USA by 84 runs to take fifth place. Oman and Italy stay in Division 3 while USA and Denmark were relegated to Division 4.
Denmark rounded off a disappointing week on a high finishing fifth in the tournament after it defeated USA by 84 runs.
Batting first, Denmark made 240-6 in its allotted overs, with Freddie Klokker finally finding form scoring a century for the Scandinavians. Carsten Pedersen also added a hard-fought 59 in what would turn out to be his final game for the Danes as the 33-year-old from Herning announced his retirement post-match.
USA’s bowlers couldn’t seem to find the right areas and only tempted the Danish into errors on rare occasions.
In reply, USA’s batting fell short of the mark once again, with not one of the team making more than 28 runs. The Danes’ young fast bowler, Basit Raja taking the key wickets of Sushil Nadkarni, Lennox Cush and Orlando Baker to walk away with match figures of 3-25.
It was then up to captain Michael Pedersen to claim the final wicket, that of Asif Khan, who was fittingly stumped by Denmark’s man of the match, centurion Klokker.
After the group stage of the event PNG had been top of the table despite one loss to Hong Kong on Friday in the round-robin section of the tournament. Today, Rarua Dikana’s men were ready to avenge the Hong Kong side that had inflicted the only defeat on the team during the course of the tournament’s group stages, but Hong Kong had other plans in mind.
Hong Kong captain Najeeb Amar had a fantastic day with the ball claiming 3-32 including in his haul the key PNG opener Tony Ura for 51 and top order batsman Chris Amini for 60.
Amini had few team-mates to build on the total with, not helped by the four batsmen below him totalling just 12 runs, but the arrival of Hitolo Areni helped the team to respectable 202-8 at the close of the Papua New Guineans’ innings.
After the break, the locals made steady work of knocking of the runs with the key player of the innings being middle-order batsman Chapman whose knock of 70 not out was key to the hosts victory.
The 16-year-old saw many of his team-mates come and go with Hussain Butt and Waqas Barqat the only two to pass 20 runs each. PNG captain Dikana was the pick of the side’s bowlers, taking match figures of 3-40.
A delighted Hong Kong captain Najeeb Amar said of the side’s win in front of its home crowd, “Today I feel like I’m flying, like I am sat on the moon I am so happy that we’ve won the tournament. I was delighted to score the winning the runs with Mark Chapman in front of our home crowd.
“Credit must not just go to the team but also our coach, Charlie Burke, he’s unbelievable, he made my job easier, he gave us a simple task, don’t panic and the results will come, which they did this week.
“Our team is full of surprises and talented guys, especially Mark Chapman among many others, they can prove themselves against any team and hopefully when we get to Dubai we can do the same. The teams in Division 2 will be a tough task, but the way we perform and play and we can make it any level and we’re confident.”
Man of the match Chapman said, “It’s an amazing feeling to win in front of my family and home crowd and then take home the man of the match medal too. I worked hard today to grind out the runs since I’ve not had a great run this tournament. I don’t know much about Dubai and the sides we’ll face, but I’m sure we’ll be ready.”
PNG head coach, Andy Bichel, was obviously disappointed about not taking home the trophy but drew positives from the tournament and the side’s promotion to WCL Div. 2.
“It’s disappointing to lose in the final, but the plan was to win promotion to Division 2 which we have done. We’re a young squad and hopefully this experience will inspire them to play better in Dubai.
“We haven’t looked forward to Division 2 yet, but it’s about being prepared to play at that one level up. Its about having plans for batsmen who will be of a higher standard, being in different conditions with different pitches.
“The higher standard you go, the better the wickets will get, the better the teams are and it will be a real test for us – we’ve got the players to do well, its now about preparing for the event.”
Meanwhile Oman secured third place after defeating Italy by eight wickets in the highest scoring game of the day.
The match was a chance for Italy to put right the side’s defeat to the Omanis in the group stages of the tournament, but it was not to be with the Sultanate of Oman showing its superior batting skills.
The Italians put on a decent total of 251 after some strong batting from captain Alessandro Bonora and Hayden Patrizi but Oman’s fast bowler Rajesh Kumar proved once again to be the in-form bowler claiming 3-41.
In reply, Italy’s bowlers just couldn’t get the breakthrough they needed after Gayashan Munasinghe and Dilan Fernando had dismissed the top two batsmen. Adnan Ilyas (120 not out) and Vaibhav Wategaonkar (87 not out) proving their batting prowess to secure victory.
Despite not playing today due to injury, Italy’s Peter Petricola was named Player of the Tournament after the all-rounder claimed 11 wickets and scored 226 runs in the tournament.
“It’s fantastic to win player of the tournament, but is somewhat bittersweet as we’ve not managed to win promotion this week,” said Petricola.
“I wasn’t able to play today as I’ve been suffering some soreness after bowling for the first time in a while for the side, but claiming those 11 wickets and scoring those runs for Italy has been worth it to see us stay in Division 3.
“I think this week has shown we have the ability to challenge the sides in Division 3 and if things had gone our way we could’ve have made it up a division, but I’m happy we’ve maintained our position,” he concluded.
Score summaries (Rankings play-off):
The Final
At KCC: Papua New Guinea 202-9, 50 overs (Ura 51, Vare 48, Amini 60; Amar 3-32)
Hong Kong 207-6, 47.1 overs (Chapman 70 not out; Dikana 3-40)
Hong Kong won by four wickets
3rd/4th Play-off
At HKCC: Italy 251-7, 50 overs (Bonora 81, Patrizi 78; Rajesh 3-41)
Oman 255-2, 41 overs (Ilyas 120 not out, Wategaonkar 87 not out)
Oman won by eight wickets
5/6th Play-off
At Mission Road: Denmark 240-6, 50 overs (Klokker 101 not out, C Pedersen 59; Cush 2-34, Corns 2-36)
USA 156 all out, 43 overs (Marshall 27, Forrest 28; Javed 3-25)
Denmark won by 84 runs
| Denmark Batting | Runs | B | 4’s | 6’s | S/R | |
| Klokker+ | not out | 101 | 138 | 3 | 0 | 73.19 |
| Yasir Iqbal | c †Kadu b Forrest | 11 | 15 | 1 | 0 | 73.33 |
| CR Pedersen | lbw Corns | 59 | 105 | 3 | 0 | 56.19 |
| Rizwan Mahmood | lbw Asif Khan | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 |
| MR Pedersen* | b Cush | 30 | 24 | 3 | 0 | 125 |
| Thogersen | c Corns b Cush | 10 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 142.86 |
| Mugfal | c Wright b Corns | 7 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 175 |
| Aftab Ahmed | not out | 10 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 250 |
| Javed | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| MNL Pedersen | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Bashir Shah | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Extras | (b 4, lb 4, w 3, nb 0, pen ) | 11 | ||||
| Total | (50.0 overs , 6 wickets ) | 240 ( 4.8 runs per over) | ||||
Fall of wickets: 1 – 20 (Yasir Iqbal, 5.5), 2 – 156 (CR Pedersen, 38.4), 3 – 159 (Rizwan Mahmood, 39.2), 4 – 201 (MR Pedersen, 45.5), 5 – 219 (Thogersen, 47.6), 6 – 228 (Mugfal, 48.6)
| Bowling | O | M | R | W |
| Cush | 10.0 | 0 | 34 | 2 |
| Forrest | 6.0 | 1 | 28 | 1 |
| Massiah | 6.0 | 0 | 35 | 0 |
| Muhammad Ghous | 10.0 | 0 | 45 | 0 |
| Asif Khan | 10.0 | 1 | 34 | 1 |
| Corns | 6.0 | 0 | 36 | 2 |
| Baker | 2.0 | 0 | 20 | 0 |
| USA Batting | Runs | B | 4’s | 6’s | S/R | |
| Nadkarni | c Mugfal b Javed | 7 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 70 |
| Cush | b Javed | 16 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 100 |
| Corns | run out ( Thogersen ) | 4 | 11 | 1 | 0 | 36.36 |
| Baker | c Aftab Ahmed b Javed | 6 | 22 | 1 | 0 | 27.27 |
| Massiah* | lbw MR Pedersen | 14 | 30 | 1 | 0 | 46.67 |
| Wright | lbw Bashir Shah | 4 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 21.05 |
| Marshall | run out ( Javed/Klokker ) | 27 | 22 | 1 | 3 | 122.73 |
| Kadu+ | run out ( MR Pedersen ) | 5 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 41.67 |
| Asif Khan | st Klokker b MR Pedersen | 2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 20 |
| Forrest | lbw Yasir Iqbal | 28 | 58 | 2 | 0 | 48.28 |
| Muhammad Ghous | not out | 22 | 48 | 1 | 0 | 45.83 |
| Extras | (b 0, lb 5, w 16, nb 0, pen ) | 21 | ||||
| Total | (43.0 overs , 10 wickets ) | 156 ( 3.63 runs per over) | ||||
Fall of wickets: 1 – 12 (Nadkarni, 1.6), 2 – 23 (Corns, 4.5), 3 – 31 (Cush, 7.1), 4 – 48 (Baker, 11.3), 5 – 62 (Massiah, 17.1), 6 – 76 (Wright, 20.3), 7 – 94 (Kadu, 23.3), 8 – 94 (Marshall, 23.4), 9 – 105 (Asif Khan, 27.3), 10 – 156 (Forrest, 42.6)
| Bowling | O | M | R | W |
| Aftab Ahmed | 10.0 | 0 | 41 | 0 |
| Javed | 7.0 | 0 | 25 | 3 |
| Bashir Shah | 10.0 | 0 | 41 | 1 |
| MR Pedersen | 10.0 | 3 | 20 | 2 |
| Thogersen | 4.0 | 0 | 16 | 0 |
| Yasir Iqbal | 2.0 | 0 | 8 | 1 |