Cardiff wrap up series win at Marsa

Last week, the final game between Marsa and Cardiff was played with the home team looking to square the series.

The visitors batted first and were bowled out for 178 runs in the 40-over game, a total the Marsa batsmen were confident of making.

A fine spell of bowling from Justin Brooke had him take a five-wicket haul. Upcoming Adam Krishna took two wickets while Malcolm Crabbe, Andy Naudi and Ronnie Sacco all took one.

Only one wicket was bowled while the others all caught. There was a good fielding performance with John Grima and Crabbe taking three each, two were taken by Nowell Khosla and one by Naudi.

For the visitors, T. Williams top scored with 49 runs, B. Beaumont 30, N. McAndrew 24 and G. Thur-stance 20.

In reply, the Marsa team had a steady start from the openers Sarfraz Ali (18 runs) and Ronnie Sacco (19 runs). Then there was a top-order collapse with five wickets falling for 17 runs, A. Kidwell causing the damage, taking two of the wickets.

Brooke followed up his fine bowling by also top-scoring with 31 runs, Naudi making 21. Khosla was going along nicely, guiding his team to victory until he hit a very hard straight drive into the legs of his last batsman’s legs who had to retire.

The Marsa team fell 13 runs short of their target. Beaumont, John Carpenter and B. Geeson-Brown also took two wickets each in the win. The home team lost the game and the series 3-1.

On Saturday, a practice game was played to prepare for the next new touring team, Hunningham, who will be playing a two-game series.

A Captain’s XI played the Chairman’s XI. The latter cruised to victory with a fine half-century from Malcolm Crabbe and 25 runs from Mat McKeon. Zubair made eight runs and there were 20 extras.

Meanwhile, the Pembroke Girls secondary school were last week presented with Kwik Cricket sets after participating in the MCA cricket day (see picture below).