Marsa CC hosted the first touring team for 2014 on Saturday as George Tye’s XI, from England, were here for their debut visit.

On a rather overcast day, which probably made the visitors feel more at home, George Tye’s XI won the toss and elected to bat first in the 30-over encounter.

With strong winds you would usually expect to see, at least from one end, a quick bowler. Marsa had Niraj Khanna and in four overs he took two wickets for eight runs.

After Khanna, the Tye’s batsmen had to deal with slow bowling and a couple close to medium.

John Grima had a good day behind the stumps taking three stumpings as the slow bowling was too much of a temptation for the batsmen.

The visitors managed to score 154 runs from their overs. Az Sykes was the top scorer with 38 runs which included four fours. Rich Joseph added 23, Rupert Murray 22 and Ed Linden 17.

James Davidson scored 11 runs towards the end of the innings.

The rest of the wickets taken were shared between Sarfraz Ali, Paul Bradley, Matthew Gillard, Sumair Khan, Tony Slater and Kevin Krishna.

Marsa needed just over five runs an over to win.

Haroon Majeed and Khan opened the innings for the home side. As expected, Majeed started strongly but he was first to go, scoring 23 runs from 19 balls which included four fours.

Two quick wickets fell and suddenly the Tye’s were on the prowl but Khan and Khanna put a stop to that and led the hosts to victory.

Khan went on to make a gallant 37 while Khanna was 49 not out. Slater added ten runs and there were 37 extras.

The Tye’s bowlers found it hard to adapt to the conditions. Nick Panson, George Tye, Jamie Berry and Guy Sowdon were the wicket-takers for the visitors.

A second foreign team, New City CC, will be playing at the oval this week.

Like Tye’s XI, they will be here on their maiden tour and will be playing a three-game series against the home side.