Last Saturday, The Globalair Winter league commenced with Marsa C.C playing against the winners of the Summer League Krishna Pen & Paper.
The Marsa team was at a disadvantage from the start of the game only having the minimum number of players able to play (6) while Krishna had a team of 11.
The Krishna team won the toss and elected to bat first looking to take advantage of the situation (even though they provided two fielders). Nowell Khosla scored a quick 21 runs from 14 balls and was finally caught from a mis hit shot.
The next two batsmen both fell L.B.W - Mark G.Sacco (seven runs) and Chris Naudi (eight runs). Faraaz was run out for a duck in a mix up. Adrian made five runs before being bowled. Pierre Naudi scored eight runs and was caught magnificently by Mark Sacco, who had to run back to a ball which was sailing over his head and managed to juggle the catch.
Kevin Krishna, Sam Aquilina and Jason Muscat all were stumped by Mike Caruana. Krishna was amazingly bowled out in the sixteenth over for a total of 57 runs.
Martin Llewellyn was the pick of the bowlers taking three wickets for three runs while Javed Shah and Ronnie Sacco took two wickets each. Llewellyn and Sacco both also managed to bowl maiden overs. Llewellyn managed to bowl two.
Marsa managed to make the runs in the thirteenth over losing only one wicket. Sarfraz Ali managed 12 runs before retiring after facing 30 balls (local rule); Mike Caruana made 25 runs not out from 18 balls hitting four fours along the way and Ronnie Sacco made eight runs not out. For Krishna, Kevin Krishna was the only wicket taker with one wicket.
In the morning, in the junior game, Theo Bugeja top scored with 38 runs for his team while Serjay top scored for the opposing team with 33 runs.
Next Saturday Melita C.C start their campaign playing against Krishna Pen & Paper at 1pm. In the morning the nursery/academy will be from 9:30am till 11:30am.
Nine qualified umpires
The results of the recent European Cricket Council Umpiring Course have been a success for members of Malta Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers nine of whom passed the examination to be recognised as qualified umpires.
The top mark was achieved by Pierre Naudi with a quite amazing 97 per cent closely followed by Joy Ghose Roy, Tony Slater and Phillip Gibbs who all achieved outstanding marks.
Mike Rawle, Colin Willis, Sam Dhandapani and Chris Naudi were also successful and special mention must be made of Piers Allen who dashed up the road during a coffee break to play in a winning rugby team and return in time to pass the examination.
Following the course Mike Rawle has been accepted onto the European Umpiring Panel and will be umpiring International Tournaments next year.