Last weekend, the Marsa Cricket Club welcomed the Battersea Badgers team from South-West London. The visitors showed great resilience in their play to emerge victorious after two hard-fought matches at the oval.

In Saturday’s 40-over match, Battersea reached a decent tally of 208 for eight. Ben Cornish top scored with an excellent 57 runs, as Robin Mackrell (32), Peter Warman (30) and Andrew Thorpe (29) also made valuable contributions.

For Marsa, Sid Anand took three wickets and impressive keeper John Grima snared three stumpings and a catch.

In reply, Marsa fell 17 runs short with a host of their batsmen failing to make a significant score.

Ravi Sharma (38) and Ronnie Sacco (33 not out) were the major contributors as Rory Thomas took the bowling honours for Battersea with two wickets.

Sunday’s match was a 35-over contest and began with the local side batting first.

Feroz Ahmed resisted the tight Battersea bowling for over 20 overs to score 33 runs. Ravi Sharma hit a brisk 18 runs, while academy player Ali Hamza scored an encouraging 10.

Stewart McLuskey captured three wickets for Battersea as Marsa finished on a modest 139 runs all out.

The visitors’ reply started well enough with Dollimore and Jinks contributing 37 for the first wicket. Then, Nick Foord (20) and Rory Tomas (33 not out) sealed victory for Battersea with nearly four overs remaining.

This week, Marsa take on Woodlands CC with a T20 at 2pm on Friday and a 30-over match at 11am on Saturday.

The MCA Junior Academy resumes on Saturday morning.