Opening match finishes in a tie

The first match from the Globalair Challenge, between Marsa XI and Krishna XI, was played at Marsa last weekend.

Marsa won the toss and elected to bowl first. Marsa struck early in the first over, having Joy Ghoseroy brilliantly caught by Ronnie Sacco at covers for two runs.

Nadeem Ashraf came in and rode his luck, being dropped three times on his way to 58 runs. Tony Slater notched his highest individual score for the year making 40 runs including a six.

Sam Dhandapani was out lbw first ball for no runs. Faraz batted well for 34 runs. Junior Mike Jones made five runs before being run out by a direct hit. Frank Spiteri scored 32 runs.

Krishna, aided by 24 extras, totaled 195 runs. For the Marsa side Wally Glynn took three wickets, while Sarfraz Ali, Sacco and Mike Caruana all took a wicket each.

Marsa commenced with a great start by Sacco and Javed Shah who both scored 50 runs each. Ali then made six runs and Sunny Krishna 23.

Adrian Dominicus scored a quick 20 runs. Needing six runs from the last over, Marsa had junior Sanjay Dhandapani and Glynn batting together.

Abetted by a couple of wides, Marsa ended up needing two runs to win of the last ball of the innings. The ball was missed by the batsman and also by the keeper and the batsmen scampered through for the single to make the game a tie.

A tied game has been missing from Maltese cricket for a long time (even though the juniors had a practice game in the morning and also had the same result).

Marsa play returning touring team The Hague from Holland on Thursday and again on Saturday. The nursery will be from 9.30 a.m. till 11.30 a.m.