Last Saturday the Malta select XI played the second game in preparation for the European Third Division Championship against a select XI.

The Malta Select XI won the toss and elected to bowl first. John Grima’s wicket was the first to fall for seven runs and soon after Robert Krishna was caught for 11 runs. Nowell Khosla made 29 runs, Nadeem Ashraf 22 runs including a big six over the extra cover boundary. Sarfraz Ali made 25 runs including four fours, while Tony Slater, Mark G. Sacco, Pierre Naudi and Kevin Krishna chipped in with ten runs, 13 runs, 12 runs not out and eight runs respectively.

The top scorer for the select XI was Ali Shah who scored 87 runs including 14 fours. The select XI totalled a massive 264 runs from their allotted overs aided by 40 extras. For the Malta Select Mike Smith was the top wicket taker with four wickets, while Grant Williams took two.

Malta’s openers Mike Smith and John Callus making light work of the bowling. Smith was first to go for 12 runs from an opening partnership of 67. A further 68 runs were scored before John Callus was caught for a brilliant 55 ball, 103 runs including 14 fours and three sixes.

Javed Shah scored 52 runs before being caught and Grant Williams 36 runs. Faraz Bhatti scored ten runs not out and Chris Naudi five runs not out making the winning runs for the Malta XI.

Ali Shah backed up his batting by taking three wickets.

Tomorrow a 20-20 game will be played starting at 1pm.