On Saturday the final game of the Cricket Winter League was played between Melita CC, who were looking for a win to win the league and Marsa CC who were looking to win to finish second.

Both teams were geared up for a tough game.

The Melita team batted first. Simon Lavendar gave them a good platform scoring thirty five runs from forty balls which included five boundaries.

The next five batsmen Matt McKeogh, Justin Farrin Thorne, Andrew Naudi and Justin Brooke scored twenty five runs between them.

Marsa were back in the hunt. In the middle now Chris Naudi (who has had an indifferent time with the bat during the league) joined Chris Riordan (who has been pretty solid ) and put on a match defining partnership, both went on to retire. Naudi making his highest score of the tournament of fifty runs and Riordan also making his highest score with fifty six. Riordan found the boundary six times whilst Naudi found it four times.

A late surge from Robert Krishna of twenty three runs helped the Melita team reach 210 runs from their overs.

For the Marsa team Alan Swift took two wickets, while Tony Azzopardi and Ewan Prezens took a wicket each.

The big question now was, will Marsa bat as well as they did the previous week, the answer was no. Tony Azzopardi gave his team an almighty start smashing fifty three runs from twenty five balls, Malcolm Crabbe made twenty three runs and Frank Spiteri twenty two.

The rest of the team making twenty nine runs of which sixteen were extras. Chris Riordan completed his day by taking three wickets. Andy Naudi and Robert Krishna took two wickets each and Chris Naudi took one.

The Melita team earned twelve points for the win and leap frogged Krishna (53 points) for the Winter league title with 56 points. Marsa remained bottom with 35 points.

Well Done to Melita C.C.

Next weekend sees the first touring team from the U.K , Peshwa C.C will play Marsa C.C in a two game series.

On Saturday the Sunoco Cricket academy will be from 9:00am till 10:30am.

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