Krishna winners by a close margin

The HSBC Winter Trophy could not have had a better final as the tournament came to an exciting close last weekend at Marsa.

Under grey skies and a five-minute shower prior to the first ball being bowled on Saturday, Krishna defended their 198 total made the previous week in their 50 overs against Marsa.

Chris Naudi and Sam Dhandapani, the Marsa openers, found the bowling spell of Ronnie Sacco too hard to contend with, only scoring two runs off his first two overs.

Desmond Don Paul, at the other end, played with great variation and eventually had Naudi bowled. That was in his fifth over.

He then claimed the prize wicket of Dhandapani who tried to turn the ball to leg, only managing to get the leading edge which went to mid-on and was well caught by Sagar Krishna.

Two overs later, Paul had Tariq Hidayathullah stumped. Marsa were in big trouble with three wickets down for a mere 58 runs off 16 overs.

Joining Michael Caruana at the crease was Gozo's Mark Sacco. Together they put on a match-saving partnership of 86 runs before Sacco was bowled for 27 by Alan Kyle.

Another strong partnership was formed by Caruana and the incoming Pierre Naudi. They took the game into the last over, Marsa needing ten runs to win.

Caruana hit the first ball to deep mid-wicket and two runs were scrambled. The next ball was smashed wider of the mid-wicket fielder and looked like a certain boundary until a diving save from Ronnie Sacco stopped the ball and only another two runs were added.

The third ball was mis-hit and another two runs made. The fourth ball was again smashed towards the mid-wicket boundary, this time the fielder Angelo Spiteri, running to his right, managed to hold on to the catch to give Kyle another wicket on the day.

The very next ball Naudi was stumped and on the last one Christine Muscat was run out giving Krishna a hat-trick of dismissals and a hard-fought win by only three runs.

John Grima kept wicket well, taking three stumpings. Kyle was man-of-the-match. He made 90 runs and took four wickets for Krishna.

Next Saturday, the two teams will be playing for the Charles Mizzi Memorial Cup. This contest will be played over two Saturdays.