Over the weekend the Marsa C.C played against returning touring team Emanuel School in a two game series.
On Saturday, Emanuel School won the toss and elected to bowl first. Mike Smith opening the batting scored 51 runs before being L.B.W. Sarfraz Ali made 20 runs before being stumped. The top score came from the bat of Joy Ghoseroy who made 69 runs including one six and two fours. Ronnie Sacco made 20 runs including a six and a four. Grant Williams made 23 runs as Marsa totalled 224 runs from their allotted overs. For the visitors five bowlers took a wicket each.
Some fine opening bowling from Mike Smith and Grant Williams kept the run rate down. Smith eventually took two wickets.
For the school R.Lampier top scored with 57 runs and J.Patel also made fifty. A.Sheikh made 27, but the side was bowled out for 190 runs. Gordon Hewitt doing the damage by taking four wickets for ten runs of four overs.
On Sunday Emanuel School also won the toss and this time elected to bat first. They had a good opening partnership of 87 runs between M.Fernie (37 runs) and R.Lampier who went on to make ninety four runs and was unfortunately run out in a mix up. F.Anstock chipped in with 28 runs. The Marsa side bowled too many extras (38 in all) which in the end made a big difference in the outcome. The school totalled 221 runs all out. For Marsa, Stuart Thompson and Sam Dhandapani took three wickets each.
At least five Marsa batsmen had good starts, Nowell Khosla (27 runs),Robert Krishna (13 runs), Stuart Thompson (38 runs), Sam Dhandapani (48 runs) and Mike Caruana ( 34 runs), but none went on to make big scores to win the game. Marsa were bowled out for 200 runs. For the school J.Patel took three wickets. The series ended up one all.
Stockport match
The previous Tuesday, Marsa had another touring team to play against, this time first timers Stockport C.C.
Marsa won the toss and elected to bowl. A fine innings by S.Porritt of 107 runs including five fours and six sixes put the touring team in a good position.
A.Hope was the next highest contributor with 36 runs. They totalled 195 runs from 40 overs allotted. For Marsa S.Ali and Sagar Krishna took two wickets each. Marsa’s reply was nail biting which took the game to the last over with the home side needing five runs to win. Mike Caruana (58 runs) was caught at backward point off the first ball of the over. There was still hope but the incoming batsman could not get bat to ball and Marsa eventually lost by three runs.