Grech’s innings help Melita to upstage Marsa

Over the weekend, the Cricket Summer League continued in division one and commenced in division two.

On Saturday, Marsa took on Melita. The latter batted first.

Richard Hawker and Mike Caruana opened the batting. Hawker was first to go being lbw for seven runs. Caruana was next to go being caught for 17 runs.

Darren Grech played arguably the finest innings of his career and most probably was the difference in the result of the game.

He hit three fours on the way to 39 runs before being caught. He had faced 29 balls.

Andy Naudi played a sterling innings of 49 runs from 29 balls faced including five fours and a six. Tim Wheeler made six runs from five balls before being bowled.

Derek Ali (26 runs not out) and Bikram Arora (six runs not out) made sure that their team faced the full overs. For Marsa, Nowell Khosla was the main wicket taker with two while, Sarfraz Ali, Glen Tavilla and Ronnie Sacco all took a wicket each.

Melita totalled 161 runs.

Marsa’s reply started off badly, losing Dave Borg in the first over of the innings. This brought together Khosla and Tavilla. They tore away the Melita bowling and both retired on the 30-ball rule, Khosla making 47 runs including four fours and a six. He was unable to bat again and therefore out.

Tavilla made 56 runs including four fours and three sixes, he was later to return.

Ronnie Sacco was steady as ever and made 26 runs not out from 21 balls. Five wickets fell, with Bikram Arora taking three in one over, for no more than 15 runs.

This brought Tavilla back to the crease needing 20 runs from three overs. Sacco was facing the bowling and hit a four off the first delivery as Marsa were looking to have the game sewn up.

The next ball Sacco played towards short mid-wicket. Tavilla took off for a run amid calls of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Tony Slater, who was fielding there, picked up the ball and calmly delivered it to the bowler who ran out Tavilla.

Melita thus obtained an unexpected win to gain 10 points while Marsa collected two. Both teams are now on 10 points with Marsa having played a game more.

On Sunday, the division two game between Mellieħa and RMG took place with the former running riot and winning the game by 101 runs. Mellieħa earned 11 points for the win while RMG got none.

On Thursday and over the weekend, Marsa will take on returning team Leyland CC.