Malta Select XI win warm-up ahead of Euro Championship

Malta Select XI played the first of two 50-over warm-ups against Select XI at the Marsa cricket ground ahead of the European Third Division Championship later this month in Belgium.

Malta Select XI won the toss and elected to bat. An opening partnership of 116 runs from Mike Smith and John Callus set a solid base that any captain would have been satisfied with.

Smith was first to go after scoring 45. Frank Spiteri joined Callus and hit 24. Paul Watson was next in and out with 14 runs, including three 4s. Callus left the crease after making 87 runs. Mike Caruana scored 40 and Ronnie Sacco 35 before he was caught on the last ball of the innings.

Aided with 37 extras, Malta Select XI totalled a creditable 287 runs.

Martin Llewlyn was the pick of the bowlers, taking two wickets.

In their reply, Select XI started badly and lost two early wickets, that of Robert Krishna, brilliantly caught by Spiteri, and Javed Shah (11 runs).

But Nowell Khosla, continuing his fine batting form of late, scored 61. Glen Tavilla added 32, Grant Williams 20, Saeed Ali 22, John Grima 13, Nadeem Ashraf 10 and Sunny Krishna four.

At this stage, Malta Select XI needed one more wicket... their opponents required 70 runs to win.

A defiant 10th wicket stand from Sarfraz Ali, 26 not out, and 20 from Sagar Krishna almost took the game away from Malta Select XI who conceded 52 extras. Select XI only managed to get within 10 runs of their opponents' total.

Caruana was the pick of the bowlers, taking four wickets.

The second warm-up will be played on Saturday at 10 a.m.

National team

The national team flies to Belgium on August 18 for the European Championship played every two years under the auspices of the ECC.

There are eight countries competing this year. Malta are in Group B along with Belgium, Cyprus and Isle of Man. Group A consists of Spain, Croatia, Finland and Portugal.

Michael Caruana will be leading a strong 14-man squad for the tournament along with Sarfraz Ali, team manager, Mark Sacco, physio, and John Farrugia, scorer.

The squad is sponsored by Globalair and assisted by KPMG, Cortis and Pantalesco. The squad returns on August 26.