In an eventful spectacle at Marsa Cricket Ground last Saturday, Super Kings CC triumphed against Marsa CC to win the 2019 T20 Cricket Summer League shield while Kings Kerala CC defeated St John CC in the third place play-off to claim bronze.
In the first game of the day, St John captain Jurg Hirschi won the coin toss and opted to bowl first and his decision was vindicated as Malta's great ever bowler Andrew Naudi took three early wickets.
Kings Kerala were reeling from this setback but a strong partnership from Samuel Sanish and Bose Paul helped them to build an innings.
However, the evergreen Paul Bradley claimed three wickets of his own while Hirschi continued his gold rush of form to also take three wickets, moving him onto 23 wickets for the season.
Despite missing out on the Best Bowler award, Hirschi would go on to claim the Player of the Tournament as he also surpassed 200 runs in what was an inspired campaign from him.
Jaz Cable delivered an excellent run-out to round off the innings. Sanish was not out on 32 runs as Kings Kerala were bowled out for 97.
St John's chase got off to a catastrophic start as Sean Byrne, Hirschi, Naudi and Aled Griffiths were all dismissed for low totals.
Cable's 23 runs was his team's highest score before he too was caught off Arun Kumar's bowling. His innings helped him to 247 runs for the season and the Best Batsmen award for his campaign.
Tariq Javed and Ethan Xuereb both went past double figures for runs scored as Kings Kerala saw out the innings comfortably.
St John finished on 84 for the loss of nine wickets in their 20 overs. Bose Paul took three wickets while Kumar and captain Sujesh Appu grabbed two each as Kings Kerala CC claimed third spot.
In the Grand Final, Super Kings CC captain Amar Sharma chose to bat first against Marsa CC and was left to rue his decision early on as he himself was bowled by Waseem Abbas in the third over.
Super Kings recovered from the early setback as Gopal Chaturvedi, Suchit Samarage and Varun Prasath all reached scores in the 20s.
However, it was a Man of the Match performance from Aaftab Khan who smashed 48 off just 28 balls to propel his side to a score of 164/7 in 20 overs.
Khan would also go on to claim the Fielder of the Tournament award with 19 fielding involvements in a sparkling campaign for him.
For Marsa, Waseem Abbas took three wickets while Bikram Arora picked one, claimed a catch and a direct hit run-out.
Marsa's run chase took serious damage in the first over as they found themselves two wickets down. David Marks ran out Sumair Khan on the first ball while Ashok Bishnoi dismissed both Muhammad Usman and Jaswinder Singh.
A 67 -run partnership from Glenn Tavilla and Zeeshan Khan restored some hope for Marsa before Tavilla was bowled by Suhrid Roy.
Zeeshan was then stumped by Aaftab off Sharma's bowling while Prasath claimed the wickets of Arora and Abbas.
The final wicket of the tournament was taken by Bishnoi as he dismissed Marsa captain Haroon Mughal to claim his 23rd wicket of the season and the Best Bowler award as he had a better bowling average than Hirschi, despite the two of them taking the same number of wickets.
Marsa CC finished on 137/8 in their 20 overs as Super Kings CC claimed a 27 run victory and the MCA Summer League shield.
With the domestic season coming to a close, Marsa Cricket Section will return to touring team action in two weekends as UK-based Roffey CC visit the islands.