Jersey and Belgium both made it two wins in two on the first day of the European Division 1 Championship.

At FB Fields, Belgium edged out Denmark by 1 run in a thrilling encounter. Batting first Belgium began brightly with Nirvam Shah making 24 but their innings fell away to a final total of 104, which looked rather below par against one of the highest-ranked sides in the competition.

However, Denmark's innings began disastrously, as they lost their first four wickets for just 12 runs. Wickets continued to fall at regular intervals and at 61 for eight after 12 overs, the Belgians appeared to have the victory for the taking. Spearhead of the Belgian success was Wagas Shafiq, whose four overs brought him three victims for just 18 runs. However, Basit Javed and Bashir Shah then came together and added 36 in confident style before Bashir was dismissed for 20. With 8 needed from the last over, a couple of singles from the first two balls were followed by a four struck over mid off from Saeed Amjud. With 2 runs now needed, he drove the next delivery hard but at head height straight to Farmiloe at extra cover, and he made no mistake to the great joy of his teammates and the despair of Javed who was left unbeaten on 17.

Meanwhile at Farmers Jersey recorded an emphatic 8 wicket victory over Israel to join Belgium at the top of Group B.

Again Jersey won the toss and elected to field, with Israel making a steady start and reaching 43-2 in the 7th over.

But a devastating spell of seam bowling by veteran Tony Carlyon, who returned figures of 4-9 in 4 overs, and some sharp Jersey fielding then turned the game on its head. Anthony Hawkins-Kay ran out Eshkol Solomon with only one stump to aim at and captain Peter Gough took a fine one-handed catch to dismiss the captain Herschel Gutman, with Israel all out for 87 in the 20th over having lost their last 6 wickets for a miserly 30 runs.

In response, Jersey's openers put on 18 for the first wicket before Ed Farley was smartly caught by a diving Gutman at mid-off in the 3rd over. A 40-run partnership between Dean Morrison and Ryan Driver then put Jersey firmly in control, with the two left-handers happy to work the Israeli spinners for singles to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Off-spinner Gutman then dismissed Driver in the 10th over but Morrison continued to bat with fluency, launching several sixes onto the bank at Farmers and bringing up his 50 with a flat six over mid-wicket.

Victory came in the 12th over as Morrison again cleared the ropes, securing an 8 wicket win for Jersey and leaving Morrison unbeaten on 64 off 44 balls, a knock that had included 3 fours and 5 sixes.

Jersey coach Craig Hogan said, ‘We're very pleased with the win but there are still some areas of our game that we need to tighten up. Dean's 64 was a great innings because it's something we've been working on; if someone gets a start they finish it off and put the game to bed.'

‘Israel got off to a decent start so we did well to bring it back. Tony Carlyon bowled excellently and to get them all out for just 87 was a good team effort. The fielding and the run-outs were good but we still need to increase the intensity. We've got two big games tomorrow so as the tournament goes on we just want to get better and better.'

In the other match in Group B, France bounced back from their defeat against Belgium to beat Germany by 34 runs at Les Quennevais.

Having been put in to bat, France made 126-7 in their 20 overs. In reply Germany were all out for 92 in 18.3 overs, 17-year old leg-spinner Zika Ali impressing with figures of 3-17.