On Monday the Malta National cricket team played against Greece in their first game of the group stages in the European Division 2 championship taking place in Belguim.

Malta won the toss and elected to field first. The heavens opened up and the game had to be reduced from twenty overs to ten overs. Mike Caruana took a wicket from the first ball he bowled, John Grima taking the catch. The next wicket took a lot more work, a fifty run partnership between Manousis and Stogianos had the Malta team worried. Ronnie Sacco broke the partnership taking both wickets. Caruana took a late wicket while Andy Naudi was involved in two run out efforts one assisted by Andy Lenard and the other by John Grima. The Greek team totalled 98 runs from their allotted overs.

Malta’s reply started of incredibly with Nowell Khosla and Justin Brooke took seventeen runs from the first two overs. Then tragedy struck for the Malta team in the third over, Brooke was bowled after getting an inside edge after scoring ten runs from five balls, Khosla was run out the very next ball by a direct hit and had scored eleven runs. Andy Lenard was bowled a couple of balls later. The Malta team did not recover after that , Mike Caruana scored thirteen runs from nine balls and Darren Grech fourteen from thirteen balls being the main contributors. The Malta made 68 runs from their allotted overs.

For the Greek team Ahmed M was the main wicket taker with three. Tomorrow Malta play Spain.

Permalink: First game for Malta against Greece in ICC European Div 2