Locals beat Heytesbury 2-1 in series at Marsa

Last weekend, Marsa Cricket Club played against the last touring side until June 6 - Heytesbury from Wiltshire, England - in a three-game series.

On Thursday, the visitors won the toss and elected to bowl. The local batsmen were keen to make early inroads as J. Grima (85) and T. Wheeler (43) opened with a solid start before the latter was bowled in the 23rd over.

M. Caruana then came to the crease and smashed 41 runs not out of 27 balls which saw the total to 230 runs for the loss of three wickets.

The visitors only managed 169 runs before being bowled out in the 36th over. Three batsmen tried hard for the visitors, anyone of them could have taken the game away from the locals, especially J. Wagstaff. He hit three big sixes in a cavalier innings of 55 runs.

On Saturday, the visitors once again won the toss and again opted to bowl. This time there was no steady start from Marsa who lost three wickets for 14 runs within the first five overs. Wagstaff bowled all three Marsa batsmen in his third over.

In went S. Dhandapani (51 runs) to calm down the situation with a partnership of 139 with J. Grima (76) who again batted brilliantly.

Caruana, as in the previous game, went in at the end and made life difficult for the Heytesbury bowlers, hitting 42 runs off 25 balls for an overall total of 254 runs.

This time Heytesbury were completely wiped out of competition being bowled out for 113 runs. Only J. Livesey put up any resistance with 26 runs. The Marsa bowlers bowled extremely well with A. Spiteri taking three wickets, K. Krishna and D. Willis taking two each.

On Sunday, the tourists made it a hat-trick of winning the toss and sending the locals in to bat.

Marsa struggled to make 135 before being bowled out. Only C. Naudi (33 not out) was able to get on top of the bowling. Four other batsmen made it into double figures but could not get on with the task of making a big score. For the visitors J. Brown took incredible figures of four wickets for 14 runs off six overs.

C. Bray (49) and Wagstaff (24) made most of the runs from the winning total of 136 for the visitors. They won the game on Sunday but lost the series 2-1.

Next Saturday sees the start of the 25-over league at 1 p.m.