Marsa win RHA series but struggle against Norwegians

It was games galore for the Marsa team as they played four matches in five days. One was against Royal Horse Artillery to finish off the series and three against a premiership side from Norway, Baerum Cricket Club.

The first game against Baerum was played on Friday. They won the toss and elected to bat first.

A strong-hitting Iram scored 46 runs and 32 runs from Hassan S., helped their team to an impressive score of 157 runs from their 20 overs.

For Marsa, three bowlers, Nowell Khosla, Kevin Krishna and Mike Caruana, were the main wicket takers with two. One must also mention Malcolm Crabbe’s fielding where he took three catches from extremely high balls.

In reply, the Marsa team could only muster 102 runs with Andy Lenard top scoring with 21.

For Baerum three bowlers, Umar, Taimoor and Asif, took two wickets each. Baerum won the first game.

On Saturday, Baerum won the toss and batted first again. This time they scored 178 runs and at one stage were seven wickets down for 84 runs. One can say that the tail did wag.

Hassan G. top scored with 58 runs, Hassan S. scored 27 and Moosa 20. For Marsa, Bikram Arora was the main wicket taker with three while Gordon Hewitt took two.

In reply, the Marsa team were looking good through Derek Ali who top scored with 48 runs and later in the innings with Frank Spiteri who hit 35.

The Marsa team fell short by 25 runs with Iram taking three wickets and Asif two.

On Sunday, Baerum made it a hat-trick in winning the toss and batting first again. This time they totalled 202 runs with Wazir making 57, Umar 41 runs and Amir 37.

For Marsa, Arora and Lenard both took three wickets each as the main wicket takers, Khosla chipped in with two.

In reply, Arora was in the action again scoring 36 runs, Jim Heasman 27 and Khosla 22. The pick of the Marsa batsmen was Michael Grima who impressed his team-mates by leading the scoring with 39 runs. Again the run chase fell short as the Marsa team totalled 173 runs, Zhan and Umar both taking three wickets each for the visitors.

Baerum are 3-0 up in the series with one more game to be played today. Can the Marsa team avoid the whitewash?

All was not bad for the Marsa team. In Wednesday’s game against Royal Horse Artillery, they batted first and totalled 130 runs with Chris Naudi top scoring with 37 runs. M. Murphy was the top wicket taker for RHA with two.

In reply, the Marsa team were able to hold off RHA. Harrop and Tom Major both scored 28 runs for the visitors. It was not enough as their team only managed 114 runs from their 20 overs.

George Agius and Andy Naudi were the main wicket takers with two apiece. Marsa prevailed to take the series 2-1.

Next weekend, Marsa take on new team RAM Cricket Club in a three-game series starting on Thursday.