First victory for Overseas in Summer League

Overseas and Melita met in a Summer League match at Marsa last Saturday, both teams needing a win to move up the standings.

Melita won the toss and elected to bat. Nadeem Ashraf provided the fireworks, hitting 53 runs from his 30 balls faced including three 6s and six 4s. John Farrugia surprised all by making 43 from 29 balls after a long absence from the game.

Joy Ghoseroy added 35 as Melita totalled 162 runs from their allotted overs.

Grant Williams started the run chase with a 19 before being bowled as Mike Smith kept the runs ticking with 28.

Keith Abernathy and Richard Newbould both faced 30 balls each, making 38 and 35 respectively. Those scores took the game away from Melita.

Overseas won their first Summer League match with an over to spare.

Melita gained one bonus point for the game while Overseas took seven points for the win.

On Sunday, Marsa took on Leyland Motors (on their second visit to the islands) in the first of a three-game series.

Leyland Motors won the toss and elected to bat. Their batsmen made the Marsa bowlers and fielders sweat.

G. Porter made 28 runs before being caught, P. Cummings 45, A. Richardson 28, D. Makinson 10, V. Jones 37 and A. Makinson 74 from 52 balls including 11 4s and two 6s.

The visitors finished with a massive 271 runs from the 40 overs allotted. The only plus that Marsa had was Nowell Khosla taking five wickets.

In reply, the Marsa batsmen gave it their all but fell short of the target by 26 runs. Mike Caruana top scored with a 66 while Joy Ghoseroy was 47 not out. The main wicket-taker for Leyland Motors was A. Afsar with three wickets.

Marsa play Leyland today and Thursday.

The Summer League continues on Saturday after the nursery.

Marsa play Melita at 11.30 a.m. and Overseas take on Krishna at 3 p.m.