On Saturday Marsa CC took on Melita CC in their second encounter of the first round of the winter league.

On a cloudy day Melita won the toss and elected to bat first. Rory O’Brien opened the batting and made 43 runs not out hitting four fours along the way. His on side shots were all timed to a tee.

Alan Swift broke through early for Marsa bowling Mike Smith for five runs and doing the same to Tony Slater for a golden duck (out facing first ball).

Earlier Tim Wheeler (four runs) was brilliantly caught by Jeremy Dela diving to his right and taking the catch goalkeeper style. Sagar Krishna was also bowled for duck.

Sunny Krishna batted well for 19 runs. Zaheer and Nadeem were the next two batsmen to go scoring five runs and three runs respectively. Jason Muscat saved the innings scoring 15 runs and Jonathon Tully made 13 runs. Melita totalled 124 runs from their allotted 20 overs. For Marsa the main wicket takers were Alan Swift, Jeya Krishna and Kevin Krishna who all took two wickets each.

Marsa’s innings was off to a bad start with Mike Caruana almost being bowled of the first ball of the innings from Zaheer and Sarfraz Ali being bowled of the second ball. The Melita bowlers bowled outstandingly and runs were not easy to come by for the Marsa batsmen.

Jeya Krishna top scored with 27 runs and Mike Caruana scored 26 runs. Extras were the only other scorer to double figures with 18. Marsa were bowled out for 97 runs and gave Melita their first win of the league. For Melita an inspiring bowling spell by Mike Smith, who took four wickets for 13 runs of four overs, was their best bowler.

Melita took eight points from the win while Marsa managed one. Krishna still leads the ladder with 19 points, Marsa 16 and Melita 11 points.

The next game will be between Krishna CC and Melita CC on Saturday 7 January 2006.