The 2011-12 Winter League continued with the match between Marsa and Melita at the oval last weekend.

Marsa batted first but soon lost both openers, Sarfraz Ali and Sumair Khan, for five runs apiece.

Sam Aquilina and Tony Azzo-pardi were next in and they had started to add some points when the latter was caught by Andy Lenard.

Azzopardi left with 14 runs as Aquilina went on to retire on 35 after 30 balls faced.

Simon Lavender and Sunny Krishna batted till the end of the innings, making 11 and 19 runs respectively as Marsa only managed 101 runs, a modest score in a 20-over encounter.

The Melita innings started well enough with Andrew Mitchell hitting a six. However, he was then out on the next ball with a score of nine runs from seven balls.

Dave Mansfield was in and out but Justin Farrin Thorne and Frank Spiteri combined perfectly and were both set to retire at 30 balls each until Farrin Thorne was run out by a direct hit. He had managed 25 runs.

Spiteri retired, on 29 runs, but had to return to the crease as his team-mates gave away three wickets for six runs.

Spiteri joined Tim Wheeler in a tense finale as Melita required eight runs for victory with two overs left.

Spiteri hit a four and then took a single which brought Wheeler to the strike. Wheeler blocked a couple of balls.

He then had an outside edge which the wicket-keeper could not hold and the first slip tried in vain to hang on to the catch.

Wheeler survived and Spiteri collected the remaining runs in the last over for victory.

For Marsa, Sarfraz Ali and Derek Ali both took three wickets each. With this win Melita are now equal on points with league leaders Krishna.