A third and decisive match from the series between Marsa CC and newcomers New City CC was played at the oval on Sunday.

Marsa won the toss and elected to bat first... and bat they did, recording one of their highest scores against a touring team in a T20 game – 174 runs.

Even more impressive was that they did not lose any wickets.

Malcolm Crabbe retired after making 51 runs and Sam Aquilina made his maiden 50 and also retired. Then, Andy Naudi collected 44 runs from 24 balls to the delight of the home team.

Up to the 15th over, the visitors had only 93 runs on the board with only Vinod Tailor (24) and Ashish Ratia (12) making an impact.

Marsa were relatively relaxed but then in came Mihir Choksi and he changed the course of the game, smashing five fours and five sixes to all sides of the oval in a knock that will not be forgotten easily by the local team.

He ended with 66 runs (not out), leading the visitors to victory with two balls to spare.

Dhruv Pankhania chipped in with 20 runs. Marsa were stunned at the end of the match. After all, they only needed to take two wickets to claim victory and the series.

Marsa had won a low-scoring opener on Thursday.

They batted first and made 127 runs before limiting the visitors’ reply to just 108.

On Saturday, the visitors batted first in a 40-over encounter and made a healthy 234 runs.

Choksi was again the stand-out performer on that occasion as well, with 102 runs, as Harsh Jethra batted well for 53.

The home team only managed 214 runs in their reply despite the good performances of Nowell Khosla, Haroon Majeed, Zubair Raja, Sumair Khan and John Grima.

Meanwhile, it was announced that the remaining match from the Winter League (Marsa-Melita) will be played next Saturday.