It has been a very busy week for cricket at Marsa with two touring sides and five games being played.

Stockport Grammar School, of England, were on their fourth tour to the islands. They played their first game last Tuesday.

Stockport won the toss and elected to bat. Jones made 57 runs, Cahilly 45 and Pennington 34 out of a total of 203 for the visitors as Ronnie Sacco, Glenn Tavilla and Kevin Krishna all took two wickets each.

In reply Marsa managed to outwit Stockport within two overs of the allotted 40. Tavilla took the game away from them with 72 runs. Only J. Cowley managed to take more than one wicket as Marsa won the first game.

Stockport Grammar were then in action two days later, playing a mixed side from Marsa and Melita.

The hosts won the toss and elected to bat. Frank Spiteri made 37 and Tavilla continued his fine form with 42 in a score of 226.

The school side batted very well, with Jones (39), Purdom (64) and Young (40) making easy work of the bowling, giving Stockport Grammar their first win on tour.

On Friday, they played against another touring side - King Edward & Queen Mary School. Stockport won by 23 runs.

Saturday, Marsa was again in the action against Stockport. The latter batted first but only managed 190 runs.

Frankie Spiteri and Sam Dhandapani opened the batting. Spiteri made 81 to pass the 1,000-run mark against touring teams this year. Dhandapani made 52 not out and with 43 extras Marsa emerged easy winners.

Marsa played their first game against KE & QMS on Sunday. The Maltese team won the toss and elected to bowl. The visitors notched up 267 runs with Atherton (88 runs) and Openshaw (81) being the main scorers. Young Sunny Krishna took four wickets for the locals.

Marsa were still in the run chase at the 25th over but some tight bowling had wickets falling with only Michael Caruana making 48. KE & QMS won the game by 87 runs.

Meanwhile, it was announced that five teams will be taking part in the Summer Trophy competition which gets underway on Saturday.