Dominant Afghanistan emerge as team to beat

“Our bowling has been very consistent over a period of time and today that set up the win and it’s always nice to chase a score like that convincingly,” said van der Merwe, who previously played ODIs and T20Is for South Africa.

“They’ve made me feel at home from the start since coming into this side so I fit in nicely and we have a good team here at the moment. It has been awesome.”

At Bready, after a delayed start due to a wet outfield, Papua New Guinea got its campaign off to a winning start beating a buoyant Jersey by 24 runs. The Channel Islanders won their opener against Hong Kong on Saturday but they came back down to Earth with a bump thanks to a good bowling and fielding performance from PNG with medium-pacer Norman Vanua to the fore, taking 3-19 off four overs. Only Jonty Jenner (44) provided real resistance as Jersey managed just 121 in reply to PNG’s 145-9.

Oman made light work of Canada’s more-than-respectable total of 133 off 13 overs in a rain-affected game at Stirling. Zeeshan Maqsood smashed an unbeaten 86 off just 41 balls, including five sixes and nine fours, as Oman passed Canada’s score with 10 balls and seven wickets to spare.

Today’s scores:
At Stormont: Ireland 146-6, 20 overs (Andrew Balbirnie 44; Timil Patel 3-13)
USA 100 all out, 16.3 overs (John Mooney 2-17, Stuart Thompson 2-20)
Ireland won by 46 runs

At Bready: PNG 145-9, 20 overs (Assad Vala 29; Anthony Kay 3-24, Ben Stevens 3-24)
Jersey 121 all out, 19.4 overs (Jonty Jenner 44; Norman Vanua 3-19, Willie Gavera 2-13)
PNG won by 24 runs

At the Grange: UAE 119-7, 20 overs (Swapnil Patil 34; Roelof van der Merwe 2-10, Michael Rippon 2-14, Ahsan Malik 2-17)
Netherlands 125-3, 17.1 overs (Ben Cooper 50 not out, Peter Borren 23 not out)
Netherlands won by seven wickets

At Stirling: Canada 133-3, 13 overs (Nitish Kumar 52, Navneet Dhaliwal 28)
Oman 135-3, 11.2 overs (Zeeshan Maqsood 86 not out)
Oman won by seven wickets

At the Grange: Afghanistan 210-5, 20 overs (Mohammad Shahzad 75, Najibullah Zadran 37, Mohammad Nabi 33 not out; Michael Leask 2-24)
Scotland 173 all out, 19.2 overs (Preston Mommsen 44, Matthew Cross 37; Mohammad Nabi 3-25, Hamid Hassan 3-29, Mirwais Ashraf 2-26)
Afghanistan won by 37 runs

Tomorrow’s fixtures:
Mon, 13 July – Namibia v USA, Stormont, Belfast (1000-1310); Hong Kong v PNG, Bready, Co. Tyrone (1000-1310); Ireland v Nepal, Stormont, Belfast (1415-1725); Afghanistan v Kenya, New Williamfield, Stirling (1415-1725)