Marsa back to winning ways in Summer League

Marsa were back to winning ways in the Summer League 2006 last weekend after beating Melita to maintain the lead at the championship standings.

With Marsa batting first, Ronnie Sacco hit a 32 from 20 balls before being caught. He had five 4s along the way.

Alan Kyle kept up his fine batting in the tournament, retiring with 33 runs. Mark G. Sacco was not to be outdone by his brother and smashed 42. His tally included six 4s.

Marsa, aided with 26 extras, totalled 175 runs as Melita only managed to take four wickets.

The run chase was not going to be easy for Melita and with Joy Ghoseroy out for 18, Jeya Krishna 21 and Tony Slater 10, things looked bleak for the tournament's wooden spoonists.

Nadeem Ashraf had a superb 50 from 25 balls, with seven 4s and two 6s. However, he was run out in a mix-up. Melita were stranded on 132 runs. For Marsa, Martin Llewlyn took another three-wicket haul. Marsa earned ten points for the win and Melita two.

The second game of the day, between Krishna and Overseas, was a crucial one with both sides looking to stay in the running for the honours.

Overseas won the toss and elected to bat. They had a disastrous start with main batsmen Mike Smith being bowled for three runs in the first over and Grant Williams caught and bowled for 10 in the fourth.

Spirited batting from Jonathan Tully (20), Javed Iqbal (19) and Chris Aspden (18) took the tally to 124 which included 32 extras.

Raj and James Cross were Krishna's successful bowlers with two wickets each.

Krishna also had a bad start with John Grima being caught behind for a duck off the first ball of the innings. But after that Krishna were unfazed as Chris Naudi retired on 35 runs, Sunny Krishna 15, Robert Krishna 21 and Sam Dhandapani 12 to win the match and nine points in their bags.

The one plus for Overseas was the bowling performance of Smith. He took four wickets.

On Saturday, Krishna take on Melita and Marsa play Overseas.