The inaugural MaltaT20 Crossfire Trophy saw Charterhouse School’s Friars Cricket Club emerging victorious in what organisers are considering as the best club tournament ever staged at the Marsa oval.

In all, eight matches were played over three days, culminating in last Sunday’s final which saw a Maltese runs record of 411 in only 40 overs.

In the group stages, Marsa CC took the honours with three wins, beating Charterhouse Friars, Cricketers CC and Middlesex champions Hampstead CC.

Marsa were led by the impressive batting performances of Frank Spiteri (62), Sam Aquilina (62) and the bowling of Nowell Khosla (3 for 14), Niraj Khanna (3 for 21), Bikram Arora (3 for 33) and junior player Ethan Xuereb (2 for 15).

The play-off for third place between Hampstead and Cricketers finished in a thrilling tie as the first ever Super Over in Malta was required to split the teams, with Hampstead shading the result by 6 runs to 5.

Sunday afternoon’s final bet-ween Marsa and Charterhouse Friars saw the locals win the toss and elect to field first.

Marsa started well by dismissing R. Hughes, A. Rozier-Pamplin and J. Ryder-Smith cheaply.

With the score at 46 for three from five overs, Marsa fancied their chances of repeating their group stage win.

What proceeded was extraordinary, as 186 runs were scored off the final 15 overs.

Darren Hooey (66 off 28) and Oliver Plummer (25 off 25) played second fiddle to a destructive innings from Henry Don.

Don closed the innings on 121 not out off only 53 balls as the Friars reached a T20 record in Malta of 232 runs for five from their 20 overs.

Aggressive reply

In reply, Marsa’s best two top order batsmen, Khosla (24 off 19) and Spiteri (55 off 25), took to the run chase in an aggressive mood but were part of James Chandler’s hat-trick of wickets in the eighth over.

The next four overs went for only 13 runs and it signalled an end to Marsa’s chances for victory. A courageous 54 not out by Derek Ali and 14 not out by Sumair Khan saw the Marsa innings to a close at a respectable 179 for five.

This brought to an end the MaltaT20 Crossfire Trophy with the Friars crowned champions.

The coveted Most Valuable Player and Best Batsman awards went to Henry Don with an im-pressive 205 runs.

Best Bowler went to Ben Ryder-Smith (Charterhouse Friars) while Marsa’s Sam Aquilina earned the wicket-keeper award.

Stephen Williams (Hampstead) was the best fielder in the tournament while the Spirit of Cricket prize went to Tom Plinston.