The MCA Summer League resumed on Saturday with Krishna playing newcomers POP Mellieħa.

This match attracted the interest of the other teams in the competition with a few ‘observers’ turning up at Marsa to take notes on this new side that left a positive mark on their official debut.

Mellieħa batted first with Adeel Nazar and Usman Musadiq opening the innings but both falling within the first two overs for six runs between them.

That upset brought together Usman Khattak and Imran Yousef who produced a 60-run partnership before Yousef was bowled. He had scored 34 runs from 23 balls which included two fours and two sixes.

Khattak went on to reach 30 runs.

Apart from Khattak and Yousef, the only two other Mellieħa batsmen to make it into double figures were Haroon Majeed (11) and Waseem Abbas (16).

Aided with 25 extras, and few too many drop catches, Mellieħa totalled a healthy 142.

For Krishna, Sumair Khan was the main wicket taker with four after a very good effort.

The big question now was... were the Mellieħa bowlers up for the challenge?

Nowell Khosla and Bikram Arora were first at the crease to test the levels of their opponents.

Arora was first to go after a mere five runs and Khosla was doing pretty well to score 25 runs from 21 balls before he was superbly caught by Raja Zubair who took a ripper of a catch.

Dhruv Duggal was making inroads, scoring 28 runs from 21 balls, before he too was caught. From then on the Krishna side struggled with only Kevin Krishna making it past double figures scoring 13 runs as the batsmen were kept down to 108 runs for Mellieħa to win their first game at the oval.

They earned eight points for their win while Krishna gained two. For the winners, Abbas was the main wicket-taker with two.

This week, Marsa will figure in a three-game series (starting Friday) against English side Pretenders who will be here on their fourth tour.