The Malta cricket team played in the Pan European T20 Tournament in Hungary. This was their first games since October when they won the Malta international Cricket Tournament on home soil against the Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia.

The tournament commenced on Thursday and concluded on Sunday. The Malta team topped their group in the first round and earned a semi final placing against Poland on the Saturday.

Managing to chase down 138 runs the Malta team made it to the final, still unbeaten, They met UCT (Dubai) in the final. UCT posted a formidable total of 161 runs.

The Malta team batted steadily and a fine innings from Chris Chellew (seventy one runs), kept the team within reach of a victory.

The tides turned in favour of Malta with an outstanding innings from Bikram Arora who took the game away from UCT in one over where he hit three sixes and a four, and the rest, as one may say, “is history.” Malta win.

Well done to all the players and the coach.Home cricket

Over the weekend the Marsa C.C took on new rivals from England, Whalers C.C.

On Saturday the visitors won the toss and elected to bat first. A great innings from P. Nicholls of sixty three runs provided some delight to Whalers. He thoroughly enjoyed playing the sweep shot where he achieved 95 % of his runs. R. Giles with twenty-seven runs and D. Osgood twenty five where the main scorers from the total of 159 runs.

For the home side Mike Caruana and Andrew Naudi took two wickets each while Niraj Khanna and Gordon Hewitt took a wicket each.

The Marsa reply came from two different innings, one from Frank Spiteri who blasted fifty two runs from thirty five balls, which included four fours and three sixes and one from a patient John Grima who opened the innings and almost carried his bat just falling short of a half century by a run. Andrew Naudi chipped in with twenty nine runs and the home team were easy victors.

For the Whalers, P. English and P .Luchett took a wicket each. Marsa win the first game.

The Whalers with their backs to the wall won the toss on Sunday and this time elected to bowl first. They managed to keep the home side to 133 runs of the thirty five overs. Derek Ali played a good innings making fifty four runs and Sid Anand made twenty three.

For the visitors R. Eberstein and M. Lucas took two wickets each while Kamal, Osgood, Luchett and Bhogal took a wicket each.

The Whalers did not want to go home without a win and C. Karunaratne had plenty to say making fifty runs, Bhogal made thirty one, Eberstein twenty one and Lucas seventeen in a convincing win For Marsa Anand was the only wicket taker with two.

The Whalers won the game and managed to square the series.

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