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By Peter Della Penna in Hong Kong

Denmark wicketkeeper-batsman Freddie Klokker (Right) scored 101 not out to lead his side past USA by 84 runs in the 5th Place Playoff match at Mission Road on Saturday at ICC WCL Division Three in Hong Kong. Both USA and Denmark finished the tournament 2-4 with Denmark’s pair of victories coming against the United States.

“There are no real words to describe how we’re feeling right now,” said USA Team Manager Imran Khan. “It’s extremely disappointing and even then those words don’t really do justice to the disappointment that’s the overall feeling and mood in the camp. Just for some reason, there are factors that cannot be explained in words. We just couldn’t perform. The energy wasn’t there.”

Denmark won the toss and elected to bat first on a sunny but cool morning. Kevin Darlington and Usman Shuja were left out of USA’s lineup from the day before in favor of Ritesh Kadu and Muhammad Ghous. At the end of the pregame huddle, the team shouted their customary, “1-2-3-USA!” It was just about the only noise USA made on the day as the team played without any energy, looking generally lethargic throughout their time in the field. USA had no less than 30 runs given away on misfields and missed chances.

The tone of the day was set in the second over when Denmark opener Yasir Iqbal went for a back foot drive off Durale Forrest and sent a thick edge in the air to Orlando Baker’s left at point. Baker swiveled to the right and pulled his left hand back to let the ball go flying by to the boundary.

Three overs later, Klokker was on 7 with the score on 18 when he went for a sweep off Lennox Cush, who opened the bowling with Forrest, and missed with the ball popping off his pad in the air to Kadu’s right. Kadu shuffled over to catch the ball and in the process of missing the shot, Klokker briefly fell out of his crease. Kadu caught the ball then underhanded it toward the stumps from two yards away, but missed.

Iqbal gave an edge behind to Kadu in the next over off Forrest to make the score 20 for 1, but from there Carsten Pedersen joined Klokker and the pair cruised along to pile on the runs. At no time in their 136-run partnership were they put under any sort of pressure, mainly due to the shocking amount of misfields and generally lazy effort by the fielders in going after the ball.

The fielding performance was best summed up by a sequence that took place with Ghous bowling in the 27th over which started with the score on 104 for 1. On the fifth ball, Pedersen clipped a full delivery toward Steve Massiah at midwicket, who made a half-hearted attempt at the ball by reaching down with one hand when he could have slid to stop it for no run, as the batsmen were completing a second, Carl Wright ran in from the midwicket boundary and fielded the ball, throwing it past the backup man to allow another two runs on overthrows. What should have been a dot ball became four runs.

“The fact that we lost yesterday, couldn’t maintain Division Three status, I think really destroyed the entire morale of the team,” said Khan. “It was extremely difficult to pick the guys up and I think that was reflected in the performance today.”

Pedersen was finally out LBW to Ryan Corns for 59 when the batsman missed a sweep to a low full toss and was hit on the toe in front of the stumps to make it 156 for 2 in the 39th over. Rizwan Mahmood was claimed next by Asif Khan, given LBW for 1 after mistiming a sweep.

Michael Pedersen came in next and generated a rapid 42-run stand with Klokker in which the captain Pedersen contributed 30 of the runs before being bowled behind his legs by Cush. Pedersen walked across his stumps to play a pull and missed making it 201 for 4. Cush got his second when Troels Thogersen left for 10 after pulling a short ball straight to Corns coming in from the midwicket rope. Corns got his second on the last ball of the 49th when Wright took a catch on the circle to claim Naveed Mughal for 7.

But Klokker stayed to the end as Denmark finished 240 for 6 in their 50. Klokker brought up his 50 in 81 balls with two boundaries before reaching his century in 137 balls with just one more boundary added. He patiently knocked the ball into the gaps, batting responsibly to make sure he stayed to the end.

USA started the chase using their fourth different opening combination in six matches with Sushil Nadkarni and Cush walking out to the middle. Heading into the final match against Denmark, USA’s first wicket partnerships in the tournament resulted in 37, 9, 2, 3, and 6 runs. Reshuffling the top one more time made no difference as Nadkarni holed out to mid on for 7 off the bowling of Basit Raja to make it 12 for 1.

Lunch was taken at the four over mark with the score 18 for 1 and when play was restarted, Corns was run out for 4. Aftab Ahmed bowled a good length ball that Corns tried to flick through the on side and missed to be hit on the knee roll. A big LBW shout was given as the ball went to first slip where Thogersen fielded and fired at the stumps. Corns had shuffled out of his crease during the LBW shout and when Thogersen connected with a direct hit, Corns had to go.

Raja claimed his second when Cush dragged the ball onto his stumps for 16 going for a booming drive on one knee. Baker gave Raja his third when he pulled the medium pacer to deep fine leg for 6 and USA was on the way to another batting slide at 48 for 4.

Massiah was the next to go, given out LBW for the third time in the tournament as he mistimed a sweep. It appeared that he hit the ball onto his pad and Massiah was irate with the decision. His frustration boiled over as he started yelling at the umpire Vinay Kumar while gesturing with his bat that he had hit the ball. But USA’s captain had to walk off for 14 to make it 62 for 5.

Wright missed a sweep off left-arm spinner Bashir Shah to be dead in front for 4 making it 76 for 6. It appeared USA might have a decent partnership going with Kadu and Rashard Marshall at the crease, but that ended when Marshall drove a full ball back at Pedersen who flicked the ball with his fingertips on the way to the stumps with Kadu backing up out of the crease at the non-striker’s end. Kadu walked off for 5 and on the very next ball, Marshall was run out for 27. He drove Pedersen to extra cover and set off while Asif Khan, fresh at the non-striker’s end, was ball-watching. Khan stayed rooted to the crease and Marshall tried to hurry back, but the throw from Raja to Klokker behind the stumps was in time for the bails to come off with Marshall short and USA was reduced to 94 for 8. Khan was then out stumped for 2 overbalancing on a forward prod to Pedersen to make it 105 for 9.

Forrest and Ghous then came to the crease and put on USA’s biggest partnership of the day, 51 runs for the 10th wicket. The previous high was the 18 put on by Kadu and Marshall for the seventh. The two batted sensibly to knock the ball around until Forrest was LBW to the medium pace of Iqbal for 28. Forrest top scored for USA on the day as they were bowled out for 156 in 43 overs.

“The team itself I think is of a certain quality,” said Khan. “We’ve played opposition that’s of a lot higher standard than the teams here, people like Scotland, UAE, Canada, Bermuda who we’ve beaten regularly. So we’ve proven that we can perform at this level, even higher.”

“However, coming into this specific tournament, we were undercooked. I keep reiterating that point. We were undercooked, we weren’t prepared and that’s not really the fault of the players, or the management or the coaching staff. That is an issue within the administration that they need to look at with the whole development process, how we’re preparing teams, how we’re organizing our schedules and to really get those people involved who are competent enough to do that. Right now, without being too critical or judgmental of people involved, I think there are certain individuals who maybe don’t really understand the way teams function at this level and how the organization should be carried out.”

“So maybe the entire US structure needs to be looked at again to see whether we can produce a more efficient structure that can actually help the team grow. We should start now with the Under-19s, prepare them, start organizing tours for them and really start giving them the experience so that we can push these players forward. If we don’t do that, we keep repeating the same old tactics. Then you’ll eventually see the same results like this tournament.”

The next international competition scheduled for the USA senior team is this July in Toronto where the ICC Americas Division One will be held as a Twenty20 tournament to decide a pair of spots in the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 Global Qualifier due to be held in the UAE early next year. USA’s next ICC World Cricket League competition will also be in 2012 when Division Four is scheduled to take place.