The Maltese national team have just competed in the ICC European Championship, Division Two, which was staged in Corfu, Greece.
After finishing ninth in last year’s 20-over tournament, Malta were seeking a better placing.
However, that was not to be as in the end, they only had one win to show apart from losing a decisive match to avoid bottom place in the final classification.
The squad will have to work hard for the next tournament, particularly on their batting and, something which came as a big surprise in this tournament, their catching.
Malta batted first in their opening match against Portugal and after 11 overs were at a reasonable 77 runs. However, they could only muster 124 from their full overs with Nowell Khosla hitting 48 runs from 39 balls.
Frank Spiteri added 24 while Andrew Naudi and John Callus chipped in with 15 runs each.
Portugal took 17.5 overs to reach their target.
Malta had to play two games on day two of the tournament.
Israel managed 133 runs by the end of their allotted overs. In reply, Malta faltered badly and only made 92 runs.
The other game saw Luxembourg batting first and they made a healthy 151 runs.
In reply, Khosla kick-started the innings with a fine 42, John Callus added seven runs and Spiteri 14. At this stage, 64 runs were required from six overs with Andrew Naudi and Ronnie Sacco at the crease.
After two below-par batting displays that seemed a tall order. Moreover, Naudi faced four balls without scoring and that added more pressure on the team.
However, after that, the story changed dramatically as an awesome Naudi made 66 runs from 27 balls. Sacco collected 15 runs from four balls and Malta reached their target with two overs to spare.
This victory goes down as one of Malta’s best in international cricket. However, that success failed to lift the team as they went on to lose to Estonia and Spain.
Against Croatia, Malta batted first and scored 127 runs. In the field they gave it their all only to see their opponents reaching their target in the last over.
Malta now faced Cyprus to see who will end up last.
The national team batted first and reached 96 runs with Khosla making 26. In their chase, Cyprus made the runs in the 12th over without losing a wicket.