On an action and controversy packed 2nd day of action in ICC WCL Division 3 in Al Amerat, host’s Oman took a lead at the top of points table after notching up their 2nd win of the tournament over Singapore while USA joined in the race for the top 2 spots with a win of their own over Uganda in their opening match of the 6-nation event.
There was lots of controversy in the match between USA and Uganda as the latter’s strike-bolwer, Irfan Afridi, was not allowed to bowl another over after his first one after the umpire told him and captain Roger Mukasa that he would be no-balled for a suspect action.
That made a huge dent in Uganda’s bowling plans as they lost out on crucial 9 overs of Afridi and Mukasa had to make up the overs by himself and others. USA’s opener Monank Patel, fresh from his century in the recently concluded Super50 tournament in West Indies, struck the tournament’s first century and laid the foundation and some good stroke-play by USA-eligible player from Barbados, Hayden Walsh, took them over the 250 runs mark at the end of their 50 overs.
Uganda’s Arnold Otwani continued his good form with a 2nd half-century on consecutive days but lack of big runs from the rest of the batsmen and regular wickets kept their score in check and USA bowlers were able to apply good pressure through the middle overs. Timil Patel bowled a miserly spell of 3/28 in the middle overs, which derailed the chase further as the late batting order were contained to play out the 50 overs and limit the damage as far as net run-rate in concerned.
Oman’s captain Zeeshan Maqsood played the dual-role of an all-rounder to the T as he not only squeezed the Singapore innings with his bowling spell, but also guided his team to victory with crucial runs down the order. Singapore batters were guilty of not making big runs after getting in and Oman bowlers did very well to keep picking up regular wickets.
Brief Scores:
Singapore 185/9 in 50 overs (Aritra Dutta 38, Chetan Suryawanshi 37, Anish Paraam 33, Bilal Khan 3/31, Zeeshan Maqsood 2/18, Khawar Ali 2/34, Jay Odedra 1/33) lost to Oman 186/6 in 37.4 overs (Zeeshan Maqsood 43 n.o, Jatinder Singh 41, Fayyaz Butt 26 n.o, Mehran Khan 23, Janak Prakash 3/16, Anantha Krishna 1/29) by 4 wickets
USA 252/6 in 50 overs (Monank Patel 107, Hayden Walsh 47, Steven Taylor 27, Jannisar Khan 14 n.o, Henry Ssenyondo 2/44, Deusdedit Muhumuza 1/43, Bilal Hassun 1/39) beat Uganda 198/9 in 50 overs (Arnold Otwani 52, Deusdedit Muhumuza 43 n.o, Ronak Patel 28, Timil Patel 3/28, Saurabh Netravalkar 2/33, Hayden Walsh 2/33, Ali Khan 1/35) by 54 runs
ICC World Cricket League Division 3 Points Table:
| Team | Matches | Win | Loss | Points | NRR |
| Oman | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 0.883 |
| USA | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1.08 |
| Uganda | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.058 |
| Kenya | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -0.595 |
| Singapore | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -1.238 |
| Denmark | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -1.296 |
