Two British teams, Old Lincoln-ians, here on their fifth visit, and newcomers Romany were in Malta last week for friendly matches at the Marsa oval.

On Wednesday, Old Lincolnians played Marsa in a 20-over game.

The guests batted first and scored a healthy 149 runs, M. Murray smashing his way to 68 runs not out which included seven fours and three sixes.

Josh Taylor made 22 runs while M. Jelly chipped in with 18. For Marsa, Joy Ghoseroy was the main wicket-taker with two.

The home team could only muster 120 runs for Old Lincoln-ians to chalk up their first win of their 2012 tour.

On Friday, Old Lincolnians were looking forward to keep their good run going when playing Romany. But, the latter had others ideas in mind and ran out easy winners.

The home team took on Romany the next day and batted first.

Romany bowled well and held on to every and any catch, no matter how difficult. The Marsa team were bowled out for 92 runs.

John Grima batted well and top scored with 23 runs while Derek Ali managed 20.

David Brooke and Nick Hall both took three wickets while Rama Vasantham felled two.

The visitors only lost one wicket, that of Gary Martin who made 54 runs, before reaching their target. Martin was well assisted by Phillip Slocomb who made 32 runs.

Romany won the game to stay unbeaten in their first visit to Malta.

On Sunday, Marsa faced Old Lincolnians a second time and, again the hosts batted first.

This time the local batsmen did show up for them to produce a fine match.

Nowell Khosla scored 40 runs, Andrew Mitchell 50, Ronnie Sacco 60 and Bikram Arora 45 as Marsa collected a superb 248 runs.

For the visitors, Jordan Lucas and S. Dale took two wickets each.

The visitors, mainly through Jelly (40), Murray (31) and Dale (35), in the early innings, and then Hurst (26) towards the end, pushed Marsa to the limit.

However, the home bowlers held their nerve and dismissed Old Lincolnians for 191. Bikram Arora took four wickets which left the batsmen’s heads spinning while Ghoseroy took three. Marsa squared the series at one-all.

On Saturday, the Chairman’s Panthers take on the Captain’s Sharks in the third game of the series.