Guernsey notch first win

Guernsey finally got off the mark in the tournament by beating Norway by 47 runs in their replayed match at the Indian Association Ground. Rain forced the abandonment of their match a couple of days ago, and Guernsey - the disappointment of the tournament so far - compiled an impressive 244 for 9, with GH Smit top-scoring with 71. He was given able support from Jeremy Frith (54 from 56) while Norway's Shahbaz Butt picked up 3 for 29 in an economical spell. Not content with top-scoring for his side, Smit then prized out four wickets, including Aziz Ataul for 49, while Frith removed the captain Zaheer Ashiq for a rambunctious 62 from 50. Norway were rolled for 197, falling short by 47 runs.

"I'm very happy that we've finally managed to show what we can do as a side," said Smit, the Man of the Match. "I felt we underperformed in our previous matches which I think helped us today as we simply didn't want to lose another match. It was a real motivation to do well. Tomorrow's game against Botswana is going to be really tough especially since they, along with ourselves and Norway, have one win each - so tomorrow is all about who stays up and who goes down and we definitely don't want to go down having only just come up to this division."

Malaysia closed the gap on leaders Singapore with a facile eight-wicket win over Botswana at the Kallang Ground. Faisal Rana continued his good form in cracking 63 from 78 but, apart from James Moses' 48, there weren't enough notable scores from Botswana who were dismissed for 233. Malaysia lost Shafiq Sharif early but Rakesh Madhavan smacked a tremendous unbeaten 115 from 139 balls, sharing in stands of 111 with Ahmed Faiz (56) and 119 with Suhan Alagaratnam who was unbeaten on 36.

"It's a great feeling to score a century and win Man of the Match but my focus, and the team's, is now to tomorrow and our final group match which is against Singapore," said Madhavan. "We really want to beat them, which we know we can do, and tomorrow's game is really important as it will secure us promotion to Division 5 in Nepal next year."