Alligators beat Falcons to retain women’s title

On Saturday, the Summer League for men got underway with last year’s winners, Melita, starting their title defence on a negative note while Krishna beat Overseas in the second match of the day.

The women’s Summer League came to a close on Sunday with Alligators retaining the title and in midweek the Marsa side played visitors Leyland in a 20-over game.

Leyland batted first and totalled 126 runs in the second match from the series. Beard was their top-scorer with 28 runs.

For Marsa, Nowell Khosla was impressive with the ball, taking four wickets.

Marsa’s reply, however, was feeble with the home side only managing 84 runs, Derek Ali top-scoring with 28 runs.

For the visitors, Sifton Prince was the main wicket-taker with three.

Marsa lost the series 2-0.

From the men’s league, Marsa batted first and lost a couple of quick wickets to Melita.

The next batsmen made up for the early losses as Mark G. Sacco (17 runs), George Agius (23), Ronnie Sacco (33) and Derek Ali (15) all contributed towards a reasonable total of 120 runs.

For Melita, Andy Naudi felled three wickets while Martin Llewelyn took two.

The Melita reply was stable until they lost Naudi (27), Justin Brooke (13) and Nowell Khosla (17).

There was new hope when Ian Pendlebury hit a big six and followed it up with a switch hit which went for four.

But it was not enough for Pendlebury to take his team to victory as Melita finished five runs short of their target.

In the other league game, Overseas batted first and were off to a very slow start, eventually scoring 79 runs from their allotted overs.

Paul Bradley was the highest scorer for the team with 17 runs as Justin Barloggio chipped in with 12 and Roger Bradley nine.

For Krishna, Andy Lenard was the main wicket-taker with three.

In reply, Krishna made the runs needed in the 17th over as Lenard was equally good with the bat when hitting a high 29 runs.

Krishna joined Marsa at the top of the league standings with seven points each. Overseas and Melita have one.

Alligators’ last match in the women’s league was against Falcons. They batted first and totalled 71 runs with R. Twigg hitting 17 runs.

In reply, the Falcons had a much better start than their rivals with A. Caruana top-scoring with 21 runs. But, then the Gators’ lifted their game as the match dragged to the very last ball with the scores tied at 71 runs.

The bowler hit the next ball, the batswomen swung and missed... no run, game tied.

The result still suited Alligators as they won the Summer League title for a second time.

The men’s Summer League continues on Saturday with Melita taking on Krishna and Overseas playing Marsa.