Vala ton sets up PNG's first home I-Cup win

Stand-in captain Assad Vala scored an unbeaten 144 in the first innings to set up Papua New Guinea's 199-run win over Namibia at Port Moresby in their first Intercontinental-Cup match at home. It was PNG's second win in the competition, moving them past Scotland and Hong Kong into fourth place with 40 points from four games and putting them just six points behind Netherlands for third.

Vala, who took over captaincy for the injured Jack Vare, elected to bat and scored his second century in as many I-Cup matches after making 120 in January against Ireland. It set up PNG's first-innings total of 311. Namibia struggled in reply after medium-pacer Norman Vanua took 3 for 39 to reduce the visitors to 52 for 6.

Captain Sarel Burger produced an unbeaten half-century to keep Vanua at bay and added 52 for the eighth wicket with JJ Smit. Part-time bowler Lega Siaka broke the stand, removing Smit lbw for his maiden first-class wicket and then finished off the tail to hold Namibia to 146, giving first-innings points to PNG with a lead of 165.

PNG elected not to enforce the follow-on and Vani Morea opened their second innings with a brisk 61 off 86 balls. Left-arm spinner Bernard Scholtz kept Namibia in the match by ripping through PNG's middle order to take 6 for 65, to finish with 11 for 170 in the match. His effort helped keep the hosts to 189 in their second innings, setting up a target of 355 for Namibia.

As they had done in the first innings, Vanua and Siaka did most of the damage early. Vanua helped reduce Namibia to 14 for 4. Siaka finished with 4 for 38, and a match haul of 7 for 54.