It's safe to say that Denmark had become the tournament whipping boys. As the only team without a win so far, nobody gave them a chance at beating Afghanistan, champions in 2010 and runners-up in 2012.

But the Danes fought hard, and were it not for a blistering 61 from Najibullah Zadran, Denmark could have found themselves highly unlikely winners.

Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi won the toss and chose to put the Danes into bat. Despite resting Hamid Hassan and Shapoor Zadran ahead of more important games to come, he would still have been confident at keeping Denmark to a low score given their previous form in the tournament.

But the Danes had evidently been given a severe talking to by coach Brett Mulder, and the batting showed a toughness that until now had been absent. Opening with Yasir Iqbal and Carsten Pedersen, they put on 67 for the first wicket, the partnership ending when Iqbal was dismissed for 35.

Pedersen was out in the following over having scored 36, and Aftab Ahmed smashed a quick fire 32 not out from 19 balls to help take Denmark to 145-3 from their 20 overs.

Aftab Ahmed, who took 6-22 against Papua New Guinea last year, still the tournament record, dismissed Noor Ali Zadran from the first ball of the second over, and when Bashir Shah removed Mohammad Shahzad and Nawroz Mangal in the next over, Afghanistan were 19-3, and Denmark were on top.

Najibullah Zadran and Mohammad Nabi set about rebuilding the Afghan run chase, putting on 34 for the fourth wicket, Nabi scoring 25 from 11 balls before he was out. Zadran then took over the run scoring, dominating a 69 run fifth wicket partnership with Samiullah Shenwari, the latter scoring 21.

Zadran was the next batsman out, having scored 61 from 34 balls. Gulbadin Naib and Karim Sadiq then creeped towards the required target, Naib becoming the third of three victims for Bashir Shah. Sadiq was dismissed with the scores level, and the winning runs were scored two balls later to give Afghanistan a two wicket win with 4.3 overs to spare.

The amount of overs left in the game showed that Afghanistan won reasonably comfortably, but the match could have been a lot closer had it not been for that 61 from Najibullah Zadran. For a moment, it looked as if Denmark were going to record a famous victory, but it wasn't to be.

The performance today will give Denmark a boost in confidence ahead of their match against Papua New Guinea tomorrow. The game of the day though is likely to be the match at Sharjah between Afghanistan and Nepal, likely to be played in front of a big, not to mention passionate, crowd.