Marsa square series with Leo C.C

The visitors batted first and made a total of 149, built around contributions of 24 from opener Amit Patel and a fine 65 from Avenesh Patel who batted almost throughout the innings only being run out towards the end.  Paps Patel added 19 late on, with Adam Krishna and Haroon Mughal both taking 2 wickets for Marsa (the latter in his first game for the club).

Marsa's reply started badly, with the top 7 batsmen dismissed with the total barely past 50, only Andrew Mitchell with 25 making any major score.  Bikram Arora and Pragnesh put on 40 for the eighth wicket, but when Arora was dismissed by a fine catch in the gully by Dilan Amin for 21, Pragnesh was left to try and get Marsa home.  He reached 29 before he was caught on the boundary by Avenesh to be the last man out, Leo CC winning by 41 runs.

Santosh Patel was the leading wicket-taker with 3 in an impressive 8-over spell, Mehul Patel also taking 2 wickets.
 
 
The return match on Sunday was a 20/20 affair.  This time Marsa batted first and again started badly losing early wickets. The innings was stabilised by Malcolm Crabbe who scored 32 before retiring not out.  Joy Ghoseroy added 17 before Bikram Arora strode to the wicket to strike a belligerent 43 with Crabbe returning to extend his score to 41 and set an innings total of 148.

All 10 outfielders bowled 2 overs each, with Sunit Patel particularly successful taking 2 cheap wickets at the top of the order.  Leo CC's response started slowly but gained momentum with an innings of 23 from Jigger and a well-crafted 24 from Santosh - both were then dismissed in deliveries by Crabbe, the latter to a spectacular return catch by the bowler.  Avenesh and the keeper Amit Chauhan pushed Leo CC towards their target until Amit was caught by Crabbe off Chris Riordan for 17. 

Riordan could consider himself unlucky to have had to wait that long for his wicket since each of the 3 preceding deliveries saw the Marsa fielders drop catches, albeit difficult chances.  Avenesh perished soon afterwards for 20, caught by Tony Azzopardi, and although the remaining batsmen gave it their all the visitors came up 12 runs short.  Again, all 12 outfielders bowled 2 overs each, with Kevin Krishna equalling Crabbe#s haul of 2 wickets and Tim Wheeler displaying a long-suspected talent with a seaming ball taking 1 wicket for 8 runs. The series was therefore shared 1-1.
 
On Thursday Marsa face a side representing 32 Engineers Regiment of the British Army, and on Sunday play 2 games against 32 Eng Regt and Selsted CC, also from the UK.