Norway becomes one of the first Associate member countries to travel to another country amid COVID-19 pandemic travel restriction relaxations across some of the European countries, as they tour Denmark to play matches over a 5-day period in 50-overs and T20 formats.
The tour, which will see the “A” teams of both the countries compete against each other, comprises of two 50-overs matches on 27th and 28th of July, followed by four T20 matches on 29th, 30th and 31st July 2020. All the matches will be played at Svanholm Park ground. Both the squads contain national squad members in their ranks along with younger players, as the coaching staff assess future prospects during the games.
The first match between the sides was a 50-overs engagement, which was won convincingly by Denmark “A”, who won by a big margin of 137 runs. Denmark “A” posted 237 in their allotted 50 overs, with Christo Botma top-scoring with 74 and good contributions from Rizwan Mahmood, who contributed 45 and a quickfire 31 from Delawar Khan. Walid Ghauri and Junaid Sheikh picked up couple of wickets for the Norwegians. In reply, Norway “A” were not able to stitch together meaningful partnerships and none of the batters were able to stay for longer periods, as they got bowled out for 100, with Danish junior player Sharam Safi picking up a 5-fer and Oliver Hald chipping in with couple of strikes.
Denmark already have International fixtures lined with Finland and Germany visiting them towards the end of Aug 2020 for Nordic Cup T20I Tri-series and the national squad will also be touring Netherlands for few 50-overs and T20 games prior to that. Denmark’s participation in the 2nd round of ICC CWC Challenge League tournament in Malaysia was also postponed and the players need to play as much 50-overs games as possible to acclimatize easily to shorter duration of the tournaments when they get rescheduled.
Norway Squad
Muhammad Shahbaz Butt, Walid Ghauri, Ehtsham Ul Haq, Raza Iqbal (Captain), Ali Tafseer, Junaid Sheikh, Abdullah Sheikh, Wahidullah Sahak, Prithvi Bhart, Junaid Mehmood, Bilal Safdar
Series Scores
31st July 2020: Denmark A vs Norway (Scorecard)
30th July 2020: Denmark A vs Norway A (Scorecard)
29th July 2020: Denmark A vs Norway A (Scorecard)
29th July 2020: Denmark A vs Norway A (Scorecard)
27th July 2020: Denmark A vs Norway A (Scorecard)
