Marsa go one up against North Sussex

On Sunday, the first touring team of the year, North Sussex CC, played the first of a three-game series against Marsa.

In very cold conditions they won the toss and elected to bowl first.

William Irwin and Robert Woodman kept the Marsa opening batsmen at bay with good bowling. Zaheer Malik was the first to go trying to hit Woodman for four and missed having his leg stump knocked over.

Nowell Khosla batted well but holed out to George Mangus for 37 runs. Joy Ghoseroy (19), Mike Smith (17) and Javed Shah (10) kept the runs ticking.

Then came the match-winning partnership of Ronnie Sacco and Sarfraz Ali. They put on 92 runs. Ali retired when on 30 runs. Sacco remained till the end of the innings as Marsa totalled 241 runs.

The tourists used nine bowlers. The most successful were Woodman and Sam Lowthers with two wickets each.

The North Sussex batsmen were very cautious having to face out some good bowling from Nadeem Ashraf and Mike Smith.

Nadeem had the first wicket of Lowthers being well caught by Sacco at second slip. Matthew Donegan was clean bowled by Malik for 11 runs.

M. Bassett batted well for 37 runs as did Leo Anderson (22), Christopher Webb (31), William Irwin (37) and George Magnus (20).

The tourists ended on 211 after 40 overs falling short by 30 runs.

Mike Caruana and Sarfraz Ali were the pick of the Marsa bowlers with two wickets each.

The other two games will be played tomorrow and Thursday at 10.30 a.m.