On Saturday the Malta Cricket Association T20 Cricket Competition continued with Malta playing Russia in the first game and then Russia playing Hungary in the second.

Malta won the toss and elected to bowl first against Russia. A good opening bowling partnership between George Agius and Nowell Khosla kept the run rate low and earned them selves a wicket each. Shashi Bhushan Dakey then brought his team back in contention with forty valuable runs, a couple other wickets fell on the way but Zishan Koreyshi batted well four thirty five runs. Ashwani Chopra was the next main contributor with fifteen runs.

The Malta team bowled very well and only gave away two extras. The Russian team were bowled out for 117 runs with five balls remaining. Also the last three wickets of the Russian team fell to a team hat trick. Ronnie Sacco and Bikram Arora did the main damage taking three wickets apiece. Justin Brooke and Andrew Naudi also took a wicket each.

After a steady start from Nowell Khosla (twenty five runs) and Justin Brooke (eleven runs), they were suddenly four wickets down for forty one runs after eight overs. Andrew Naudi (twenty one runs) and the master blaster Haroon Majeed (forty two runs from twenty six balls which include six fours) steadied the ship and put Malta on the right road for victory.

Malcolm Crabbe did the honours making the last six runs supported by Ronnie Sacco. For the Russians S.B Dakey impressed by taking four wickets while Ashwani Chopra and Alexander Bogatyrev took a wicket each.

Malta earn two points from the win.

Hungary playing in their first game simply bewildered the Russian bowling making an impressive 220 from their 20 overs. Khaibar Delder making eighty five runs from forty seven balls and Abhishek Kheterpal seventy nine runs from thirty seven balls.

The Russian batsmen put up a great effort and made the second highest score of the tournament, that of 148 runs. Hungary earn two points.

Tomorrow Hungary play the Czech Republic in the morning game and will then play Malta, in what looks like will be the deciding game of the tournament.

In between today’s games a junior game was held between the Marsa academy and the San Andrea school where the result was a tie.

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