On Saturday the Cricket Winter league continued with the Marsa C.C taking on Melita Betfair C.C. The Marsa team was searching for its first win and were delighted with the availability of players such as Derek Ali, Sarfraz Ali, Sunny Krishna, Sam Aquilina and Paul Bradley who had not played in the previous week’s loss to Krishna C.C.

The Marsa team won the toss and elected to bat. Sarfraz Ali and Sunny Krishna opened the batting. They were going just under a run a ball when Sunny Krishna was caught when the score was 24. Sunny made 16 of them which included two fours.

Ali was also caught a couple of overs later and had made three runs. Sam Aquilina and Malcolm Crabbe steadied the ship until Aquilina went to play a leg glance and had a leading edge which was well caught by Dave Borg after the sub fielder had fumbled the catch. Aquilina made five runs.

Crabbe went on to retire after 30 balls (local rule): he made 20 runs. Derek Ali was next in and next out: he made four runs.

At the crease were Paul Bradley and Mike Caruana who faced out the rest of the overs. Bradley made 19 runs from 22 balls while Caruana scored 13 runs from nine balls.

With 13 extras the Marsa team totalled 93 runs, the second game they did not manage to make over a hundred runs.

For Betfair, Justin Farrin Thorne was the main wicket taker with two while Adam Krishna and Dave Borg took a wicket each. Gordon Hewitt bowled well with only 12 runs being taken of his four overs.

The Betfair reply started off amazingly with fourteen runs of the first over with Frank Spiteri and Dave Borg looking in fine form. Borg’s form lasted only into the next over when he was caught. He made five runs.

The third over of the innings went for 15 runs with Spiteri in more fine form playing cut shots and cover drives which went to the boundary.

Spiteri eventually retired after 30 balls and had made 32 runs. Eamond Dolan made nine runs for Betfair while, Dave Mansfield, one run, Andy Lenard 15 runs, Justin Farrin Thorne two runs and Adam Krishna no runs.

This left Andy Naudi and Gordon Hewitt to make up the remaining runs for victory, which they made in the 18th over. Naudi made 14 runs and Hewitt one run. They were also aided with 15 extras.

For Marsa, Mike Caruana was the main wicket taker with three, while Derek Ali took two and Sumair Khan took one.

From the win, Betfair earned nine points while the Marsa team earned their first point.

Next Saturday the Melita Betfair C.C take on Krishna C.C at 9.45am.