Marsa lose after poor innings

On Saturday, Marsa CC played Harrow School from the United Kingdom. The tourists were on their ninth visit in as many years.

D. Morrison and J. Scott opened the batting and paved the way for Harrow with a 121-run partnership.

Scott was first to go, being caught and bowled for 55. Morrison followed soon after, being adjudged lbw for 63 runs. Y. Sert scored 33 and W. Denehy 12. They were both out, caught in similar fashion at short cover off Joy Ghoseroy's bowling.

A. Poole was run out by a brilliant piece of fielding from Chris Naudi. Sarfraz Ali then came on to bowl and bewildered the batsmen, taking three wickets - H. Khayat (five runs), O. Bunting (18) and J. Galbraitz (12).

Frank Spiteri chipped in with two other wickets - M. Morgan (18) and A. Stogden. The latter was brilliantly caught by Mike Caruana who had to make a dash before taking the catch. Stogden had only scored seven runs.

Harrow School were bowled out in the 50th over with five balls remaining. With the aid of extras, they totalled a reasonable 269.

The main strength in Harrow's batting was their running between the wicket. They only scored a dozen 4s in their whole innings.

Marsa's reply was rather slow as they lost too many early wickets.

After 20 overs, the hosts only had 58 runs to show and lost the wickets of Ghoseroy (four runs), Mark G. Sacco (five), John Grima (run out without facing a ball) and Chris Naudi (16). Nadeem Ashraf was out in the 21st over without troubling the scorers. Frank Spiteri top-scored for the home side with 38 runs, Javed Shah scored 14, Mike Caruana 16, Ronnie Sacco four and John Rusher did not trouble the scorers either.

Ali was the 'not out' batsman with five runs as Marsa were bowled out for a poor 122.

Next weekend, Marsa take on newcomers West XI in a two-game series, both starting at 10.30 a.m. Academy activities on Saturday will be between 9.30 and 11.30 a.m.