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.

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.