The MCA Winter League reached its half-way point at the oval on Saturday when the last match from the second round was played between Marsa and Melita.

The last time these two teams met, the Marsa team had a big win, actually their only success to date. Marsa had Derek Ali in their team on that occasion but last weekend he was unavailable.

Melita batted first and opened up with junior players Eric Krishna (one run) and Will Pettit (seven runs) who was making his debut. Dave Borg retired (after 40 balls), making 34 runs which included a couple of boundaries.

Chris Riordan kept up his good form and hit a valuable 54 as Sam Aquilina also showed some fine touches when adding 40 runs from 32 balls.

Chris Naudi played a forceful innings of 32 from 13 balls which included two sixes and two fours.

From their 30 overs, Melita totalled an impressive 234 runs, a similar score to that of Marsa in the first round.

For Marsa, Tony Azzopardi was the main-wicket taker with two while Joy Ghoseroy and Sarfraz Ali took a wicket each.

The Marsa reply was off to a good start with Azzopardi hitting 26 runs. However, that was the highest score the team could manage on the day.

Ghoseroy was close with a 24 and Ali and Daniel Galea both chipped in with 18 runs. Frank Spiteri added ten.

The overs ran out for Marsa and they could only muster 151 runs, losing the match by 83 runs.

For Melita, Justin Farrin Thorne was the main wicket-taker with two.

Thanks to the 12 points won, Melita climbed to second position, four points short of leaders Krishna. Marsa are four points behind Melita in the standings after only managing three points for their latest showing.

Next Saturday, Melita take on Krishna in the opening match from the third round.