Rarua Dikana's team scored a victory on the opening day of the tournament as PNG beat Oman by 39 runs despite a hard-fought century from Omani captain Hemal Mehta.

PNG's Chris Kent and Kila Pala were the players of note in the batting line-up for the Micronesians after the top-order failed to perform. Kent struck 68 before being caught and bowled by Mehta while Pala struck a run a ball 77. The 25-year-old hit ten boundaries and two sixes on his way to helping PNG post a total of 248 under the grey skies of Hong Kong.

Oman's bowlers Hemin Desai and Khalid Rashid both took wickets including those of key PNG batsmen Tony Ura, Chris Amini and Mahuru Dai.

With a competitive total set, PNG set about dismissing the Omanis in style with the star-turn of the day coming from Hitolo Areni.

The 30-year-old fast bowler claiming a hat-trick on his opening day, firstly dismissing Deep Trivedi when wicketkeeper Jack Vare snaffled a catch behind the stumps while the second two wickets of Adnan Ilyas and Sultan Ahmed coming from some nifty fielding at first slip by Dikana.

Mehta made a valiant effort in an attempt to save his side from defeat, striking the first century of the tournament but his hard work was in vain as the side fell short of the target by 39 runs and PNG's bowlers cleaned up the tail.

PNG's man of the match Areni said, 'I'm really pleased to have taken a hat-trick today and to help my side to our first win of the tournament. I've recently broken back into the national side and it feels good to see my hard work paying off today but it was very much a team effort today.

'We've another game tomorrow and we can't rest on today's win, we need make sure we carry this through and hopefully I can continue to contribute to help us win.'

Mehta said of the defeat, 'We had a great start against PNG and then we dropped two catches in a span of three overs which made the difference in the first innings where they managed to get a long partnership in place.

'I have to say our bowlers did work hard today to try and limit the runs, with Desai and Ranpura our seamers taking four wickets to dismiss most of the top order. But we let things slip to allow them to set up their major partnership and wickets only began to fall again after our spinner Khalid Rashid stepped in.

'The partnership myself and Vaibhav Wategaonkar built was decent and if we'd had another two players contribute 30-odd runs each alongside myself things may have turned out differently. Areni put us on the back foot when he took three key wickets and unfortunately I couldn't steady the ship on my own.'