At Grainville where Jersey's most matches are played, Denmark met the host nation in the tournament's first match. Grainville’s pitch is known to take spin as Denmark decided to put out a team with four possible spinners. Jacob Larsen, Troels Thogersen and Omar Hyatt were left out and this meant debut for Martin Pedersen from Kolding and Hamid Shah from Svanholm.
Denmark won the toss and Michael Pedersen chose to go bat even though the pitch was damp after overnight rain which would give the seamers an early advantage and partly also because it was overcast and the humidity was high which was favourable to the swing-bowlers. But Michael was convinced that the team played best without pressure and when they were batting first.

Before the match manager Ole Roland held a speech to celebrate Carsten Pedersen who became the first national team player to play 100 internationals. Carsten was awarded an engraved commemorative trophy and a gift from DCF.

The Danes did not get the good start they had hoped. Zishan Shah got a short ball that soared and seamed inward and he could only avoid it by using the bat handle and was caught in the slips. The pitch proved to be difficult to play on and it was made worse by the ball swinging. Captain Michael Pedersen was bowled by an inswinger and Hamid came in and played sensibly until the drinks break. Meanwhile Frederick Klokker played at the other end with accustomed authority seasoned with a little luck.

After the break Hamid edged a full-pitched ball to the keeper from Hagues bowling. Hague was by far the most stable of Jersey bowlers and kept the Danes from scoring regularly. Carsten Pedersen started well and looked to build an innings when he slammed one of Hague few bad balls straight into point’s hands. Denmark’s problems grew when Rizwan Mahmood misjudged a drive that rose vertically into the air and the Danes were 59 for 5. Henrik Hansen and Frederik Klokker had stabilized things around a little by adding 38 runs together until Henrik was well stumped down the legside. Disaster was lurking just around the corner as Bobby Chawla chopped the ball directly into the stumps and 7 wickets were down for the 97. Then the day's second debutant, a nervous looking Martin Pedersen entered the stage, who threw his nervousness away when he middled the ball. Martin had no respect whatsoever for the Jersey bowlers and started merciless to attack the bowling and struck a six into the long corner of the ground. Frederick also woke up scoring regularly and the two together made 67 in the last 10 overs. Frederick ended on 67 not out and Martin 38 not out. The Danes had now a total that could be defended.

And the belief was reinforced when a Henrik Hansen bouncer was gloved by Hague to Carsten in slip with only four on the board. Although Driver hammered Henrik to the boundary twice in one over the belief was still there as Driver edged David Borchersen for a good catch by keeper Frederick Klokker with 30 on board. Unfortunately the Danish opening bowlers failed to get Jersey players to play on the front foot. Farley and Gough began to build a partnership and the Danish spinners who came on could not get a breakthrough despite the turning ball. There were too many loose balls and that gave runs away. It was a batman’s error which gave a run out to create a breakthrough, but Michael Pedersen was bowling well and with 131 on the board was rewarded by catching Gough lbw and shortly after Morrison hit an extremely wide ball from Michael in the air which Klokker caught. But it was too late and Jones and de la Haye played out to a five wicket victory.

Coach Simon Talbot was disappointed that the Danes did not manage to create more excitement about the outcome when the Danes had, despite difficult playing conditions, posted a decent total on the board. The bowling was not threatening enough. The challenge for the team now is to show that they can bounce back and play better tomorrow against Scotland. It is a young team to develop and Martin Pedersen with his batting effort today showed the way. The negative is the weather forecast for the next days which will remind more of autumn than summer with rain and wind on the road.