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Malta cricket weekend review
Over the weekend the touring season began for cricket in Malta. Al Ansar C.C, a team from Birmingham, England came for their first visit to the Maltese islands to play a two game series against the Marsa C.C.
On Saturday the visitors won the toss and elected to bat first, They were of to a bad start losing to early wickets for a run a piece, one was bowled and the other a brilliant piece of fielding by Ronnie Sacco who threw down the stumps which had the batsman run out. Imran the Al Ansar captain top scored for his team and scored forty nine runs before being caught which included four fours and a six. Hamid was next best score with thirty seven runs. Two other batsmen made it over ten runs , Usman (thirteen runs) and Fayyaz (twelve runs) before the team was bowled out for 159 runs. For the Marsa team Mike Caruana and Ronnie Sacco were the wicket takers with two each, while Andy Lenard,Nowell Khosla,Joy Ghoseroy and Tim Wheeler all took a wicket each.
The Marsa teams reply was very slow, Nowell Khosla scored thirty one runs from forty six balls and Mark G Sacco scored twenty two runs from seventy four balls. This put pressure on the middle order batsmen and they all collapsed, none making more than ten runs. With two wickets remaining and forty eight runs needed of forty two balls Mike Caruana joined Andy Lenard at the crease. These two batsmen caused the visiting team a headache and made sure their team won, even though there was only one ball left when they did win. Both batsmen scored twenty five runs of twenty seven balls. For Al Ansar Hamid (three wickets) and Nassar (two wickets) were the pick of the bowlers. Marsa go one up in the series.
On Sunday Al Ansar were determined to win and again batted first after winning the toss. They piled an impressive score of 194 runs. Their captain Imran top scoring with sixty two runs. Other contributions came from Ghazanfar (thirty two runs), Asfar (twenty six runs), and Usman (twenty one runs). For the Marsa team Ian Pendlebury impressed taking four wickets, Tony Slater was also in form taking three. Andy Lenard took two and Gordon Hewitt took one.
Unfortunately for the Marsa team the total was too much and only managed to total 149 runs. Sarfraz Ali top scoring with forty one runs. For the visitors Waqqas and Imran were the main wicket takers with two each. Al Ansar manage to square the series.
Next Saturday the Chairman’s XI will take on the Captain’s XI. 12:30 start. The academy/nursery will be from 9:00 till 10:30am.
