On Saturday the Malta select XI played the first of two 50 over games in preparation to the European Third Division Championship against a select XI.

The Malta XI won the toss and elected to bat. An opening partnership of 116 runs from Mike Smith and John Callus set a foundation that any captain would be happy with. Smith was first to go scoring forty five runs including seven fours. Frank Spiteri joined Callus and made twenty four runs. Paul Watson was next in and out with fourteen runs including three fours. Callus was next to go out making eighty seven runs including nine fours. Mike Caruana scored forty runs and Ronnie Sacco scored thirty five runs and was caught on the last ball of the innings. Aided with thirty seven extras the Malta select team totaled a respectable 287 runs. Martin Llewlyn was the pick of the bowlers taking two wickets while Grant Williams, Glen Tavilla, Nowell Khosla and Sagar Krishna all took a wicket each.

The Malta select XI started well taking two early wickets, that of Robert Krishna (four runs)who was brilliantly caught by Frank Spiteri who ran in towards a lobbed ball, dive forward and caught the ball with one hand, and the other wicket of Javed Shah (eleven runs). Nowell Khosla continuing his fine batting form scored sixty one runs including seven fours and a six. Glen Tavilla scored thirty two runs before being caught. Grant Williams twenty runs, Saeed Ali twenty two runs John Grima thirteen runs, Nadeem Ashraf ten runs, Sunny Krishna four runs.

At this Stage the Malta XI needed one more wicket and the rest needed seventy runs to win. A defiant tenth wicket stand from Sarfraz Ali twenty six runs not out and twenty runs from Sagar Krishna almost took the game away from the Malta select. The Malta select conceded fifty two extras which let the rest get within ten runs of the total. Mike Caruana was the pick of the bowlers taking four wickets while Sam Dhandapani, Ronnie Sacco took two wickets each, Mike Smith and John Callus took a wicket each.

The second game will be played next Saturday at 10am.