Malta select win first game

On Saturday the Malta select team played against the Rest in a twenty over game as a warm up for the European Championship in September.

 The Malta team batted first with Dave Borg and Nowell Khosla opening the batting. Khosla faced the opening over of speedy Wassem Abbas and was very watchful and managed to hit one four of that over. Borg facing Dhruv Duggal  for his first over was not to bothered about waiting and watching the ball as he smashed two sixes and a four of that over. Duggal then managed to trap Borg lbw in his second over. Borg made a credible twenty runs from ten balls. Khosla was soon to follow making thirteen runs from seventeen balls.

Justin Brooke made thirteen from twenty four balls and Frank Spiteri made seventeen from nineteen balls. Andy Naudi made five runs and all these batsmen were wickets to the bowling of Bikram Arora , the Rests most successful bowler. Sunny Krishna managed twenty one runs from twenty balls and Ronnie Sacco fifteen from eight balls which included two fours. The Malta team made 144 runs including the extras. For the Rest, Wassem Abbas , Dhruv Duggal and Imran Yousaf also took a wicket each. Interesting to note that their were forty one dot balls in the innings.

Simon Lavender opened the innings for the rest and did not trouble the scorers as he was caught of the second ball of the innings. Harron Majeed his opening partner managed to stay in and watched Bikram Arora (five runs), Dhruv Duggal (two runs), Imran Yousaf (two runs) and Malcolm Crabbe (six runs) all disappear to the pavilion before he was eventually caught. He made twenty six runs from twenty four deliveries which included two fours.

Chris Riorden and Pragnesh put on a twenty five run partnership (which was worrying the Malta team) before Pragnesh was caught by Frank Spiteri (his second catch for the day). Pragnesh made fifteen runs. Riorden was then involved in another twenty seven run partnership his time with Sam Aquilina. Aquilina made six runs. A few runs later Riorden was out making a gallant thirty three runs from thirty one balls. The Rest were bowled out in the eighteenth over totalling 106 runs including extras. For the Malta team Andy Naudi and Ronnie Sacco were the most successful with three wickets a piece while Nowell Khosla and Derek Ali took two each. The Malta team win the first encounter. Next Saturday will be the second game.

In the Summer league game, Melita Betfair won a walkover against POP Mellieha.

Next Saturday POP Mellieha play the Overseas.