On Saturday the MCA Cricket Winter Wallop commenced the second round with the Marsa Magpies taking on the Krishna Kobras. The last time these two met the Kobras were kings.

The Magpies finally had a strong outfit, in previous games they were depleted. They won the toss and batted first. Haroon Majeed began his proceedings by hitting the first ball he faced for six. The bowler was not to happy to see him being dropped the next ball and then being dispatched for another two boundaries.

It was a fantasy start for Marsa having twenty runs on the board after the first over. Majeed’s luck ran out in the third over when he was caught after making eighteen runs from nine balls. His opening partner Andrew Naudi made thirteen runs.

The match winning innings came from the solid Tony Azzopardi who retired and managed to get back in, totalling a score of forty three runs which included four fours.

Along the way Marsa lost six batsmen for nine runs. Glen Tavilla enjoyed a knock of twenty runs which included three boundaries towards the end of the innings. Young Ali Hamza made five runs to round of the bating.

The Kobras gave away too many wides which cost them a total of forty one runs. Add a couple of leg byes and the Magpies totalled 151 from their allotted overs.

For the Kobras, Kevin Krishna and Ravi Sharma took a couple wickets each while, Nowell Khosla, Amy Caruana, Bikram Arora and Stuart Clarke all took a wicket each.

The Kobras needed the big guns Bikram Arora (seven runs) and Nowell Khosla (fifteen runs) to do what they do best, unfortunately not on this day. Matthew Hatfield top scored alongside wides with sixteen runs, Mike Caruana scored fourteen runs and Kevin Krishna made ten runs. The rest did not make it into double figures.

For Marsa , the return of Ronnie Sacco had him take four wickets while Haroon Majeed, Ali Hamza, Glen Tavilla and Anand Veerasimman all took a wicket each.

The Marsa Magpies register their first win and earned seventeen points from the game. They still remain third, three points behind Krishna who after earning two points are on twenty one points. Melita top the table with twenty nine points.

Next Saturday Marsa Magpies play Melita Bees.

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

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