Denmark have gone a long way to booking their place at Hove for finals day on Saturday with a crushing win over France this afternoon at Horsham.

Batting first after winning the toss, the opening pair of Fred Klokker and Carsten Pedersen put on 79 for the first wicket before Pedersen was caught by Ziki Ali off his own bowling for 25. Klokker followed soon after having scored 53 from 31 balls.

Aftab Ahmed then took over the run scoring, smashing an unbeaten 54 from 35 balls including three sixes, one of which went so far the ball could not be found. His innings took the Danish total to a formidable 185-4.

In reply, France initially looked to be making a slow but steady chase of that target. But the dismissal of Thavalingam for 27 sparked a collapse as they went from 45-1 to 71-8. Zika Ali then gave the innings a little more respectability with a quick 17, but he couldn't stop France being bowled out for 96.

Hamid Shah and Kamran Mahmood both took four wickets as France collapsed, Mahmood conceding just 8 runs in his 3.1 overs as Denmark recorded an 89 run win.

Meanwhile next door on the main Horsham ground, the Isle of Man lost a low scoring game against Germany to make it three defeats from three at the tournament.

The Isle of Man won the toss and chose to bat first. Philip Littlejohns batted well for the second time today with 35 before he was stumped, but that and 28 from Oliver Webster were the only two signifcant contributions and some tight German bowling helped restrict them to 122-9 from their 20 overs.

To start with, the Manxmen bowled well, keeping the German scoring rate down, and at the halfway stage the teams were more or less neck and neck. But Nafees Ahmed eventually cut loose, at one point taking 34 runs from 2 overs almost entirely by himself.

Ahmed was out for 47, scored from 30 balls, and his wicket came to late to make a difference to the match as Germany won by five wickets with 4.5 overs to spare. It was a much needed win for the German side after losing both games on the opening day.

Tomorrow is a rest day in Sussex, so the teams will be taking time to reflect on the opening two days of play and look at how they can push on to try and make finals day at Hove.