The weekend was again packed with cricket. On Saturday the much awaited game between Marsa C.C and Krishna C.C to end the Summer league was played. There was even a mascot running around supporting the Krishna team.
The Krishna team batted first. They had a poor start losing two key players in Andy Lenard and Javed Shah by the third over with only a run between them. Bikram Arora entered and with Sunny Krishna steered their team to a reasonable total. Arora was to retire (local rule) after 30balls and scored 34 runs which included four fours.
Sunny went on to make 19 runs before being caught in the deep by Ronnie Sacco. John Grima was the only other batsmen who made it into double figures scoring 11 runs. The final score was 104 runs. For the Marsa team Derek Ali and Sarfraz Ali both took three wickets while Dave Borg and Ronnie Sacco took a wicket each.
In reply the Marsa team also had a bad start losing Justin Thorne (six runs) and Frank Spiteri (no runs) in the second over to the bowling of Adam Krishna. Matt Booth (22) and Malcolm Crabbe (16) both settled well, but once the Krishna team took their wickets , there was a sense of victory, three more wickets fell and the Krishna team were with their tails up.
Derek Ali had other ideas, he batted patiently , hit out at calculated times and took his team to victory making 31 runs from 25 balls which included two sixes and a four. For Krishna Tony Azzopardi and Bikram Arora also took two wickets each while Kevin Krishna took a wicket.
The final standings of the league are as follows; Marsa C.C 39 points, Melita C.C 36 points , Krishna C.C 18 points and Overseas C.C 13 points.
The win gave Marsa C.C their fourth title win.
On Sunday the Marsa team took on new touring team I Zingari C.C from the United Kingdom in a 35 over game.
The Marsa team batted and totalled 164 runs. Bikram Arora top scored with 40 runs, Frank Spiteri 38 runs, Andy Naudi 29 runs and Sunny Krishna 20 runs as the main contributors.
For the visitors Chamberlins, Carroll and Stafford took two wickets each, while Gilmore took a wicket.
In reply the tourists pushed hard with Earl Fortesche (36 runs), A. Martin Smith (31), Lord Stafford (10) and A.Carroll (33 runs). The game went to the last over where the visitors needed 10 runs to win. In a frenzy the tourists lost their last three wickets and only made one run and therefore the home team won by eight runs.
Next weekend sees new touring team Effigies C.C playing the Marsa team in a two game series. Both games start at 10.30am. On Saturday the cricket academy/nursery will be from 9am till 10.30am.