The qualifier play-off for this year's men's cricket World Cup continued today in Windhoek with the hosts beating Papua New Guinea in a high-scoring encounter and Canada beating old rivals USA in a lower scoring contest.

Hosts Namibia were put into bat by PNG captain Assad Vala and promptly lost opener Shaun Fouché - who scored 55 on the openeing day of the tournament - to a second ball duck. Michael van Lingen followed soon afterwards with just ten runs on the board.

Nikolaas Davin and Gerhard Erasmus then put on 151 for the third wicket before Davin was out for 90, scored from just 79 balls. The runs continued to flow though as Erasmus and Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton put on another 130 before both fell in quick succession in the 43rd over, Loftie-Eaton for 61 and Eramsus for 125, his highest ODI score.

The bottom half of the batting order continued the quick scoring, hitting the last seven overs for 88 runs to take the Namibian total to 381-8. Semo Kamea took five wickets for the visitors but went for 68 runs in the process.

PNG lost Tony Ura early on in their innings but knocks of 47 by Kiplin Doriga, 54 by Sese Bau and 57 by skipper Assad Vala set the stage for a maiden ODI century by Charles Amini, who made 109 from 75 balls. When he was out, Papua New Guinea were 289-6, needing a tricky, but not impossible, 92 from 10.4 overs.

Chad Soper and Riley Hekure put on 39 for the seventh wicket, but Soper's dismissal sparked a flurry of wickets as PNG went from 328-6 to 333 all out. It was the first time they'd scored over 300 in an ODI but it was only good enough for a 48 run defeat.

The day's other game was the latest installment in the oldest international sporting rivalry of them all, as Canada took on USA at the Wanderers ground in the first match between the two teams to be an official ODI.

Canada were put into bat and faced a rapid opening spell from Ali Khan in which they lost their first three wickets - two of them to Khan - for nine runs. Aaron Johnson and Nicholas Kirton then put on 75 for the fourth wicket to get Canada back into the game before Johnson was out for 47.

Kirton scored 35 before he was out whilst Harsh Thaker made 43 as Canada were bowled out for 198.

The USA reply was dominated by Sushant Modani's 64 with the only other score of note being Nosthush Kenjige's 28 at number nine. Kaleem Sana was the pick of Canada's bowlers with 3-14 as USA were bowled out for 172, losing by 26 runs.

The tournament continues tomorrow with Namibia taking on Jersey and USA coming up against the UAE.