The Isle of Man have made a bright start to the European Cricket T10 Championship’s Challenger Division’s play-offs in Spain.
After topping their group last week and beating Estonia on Thursday evening, to start this week’s stage on two points, the Manx faced the same opponents on Monday.
Another close game was expected between the two sides, with the previous encounters between the pair going down to the last overs.
On this occasion, however, the Isle of Man recorded a more comfortable 18-run victory thanks a man of the match performance from skipper Ollie Webster.
The Peel and St John’s man hit 84 as the Manx finished on 171/2 before finishing with figures of 2/26 as the Baltic nation was restricted to 153/5 in reply.
Providing able support to Webster in the Manx innings were club-mates Eddie Beard and Akkie Van Den Berg who hit 24 and 35 respectively.
Van Den Berg also finished with figures of 1/15 as Webster took two wickets in the first over to get his side off to a good start.
In second game of the play-offs against Czechia, the islanders won the toss and elected to field.
The Europeans finished on 133/4 from their 10 overs, with Kieran Cawte the pick of the Manx bowlers.
Despite the first-ball dismissal of Webster, Eddie Beard and namesake Christian Webster soon steadied the ship and knocked off the total with a couple of overs to spare.
Beard hit 73 and Webster an unbeaten 54 as the Manx ended on 134/1.
The islanders’ campaign in Malaga continues tomorrow (Tuesday) with games against Greece at 12.45pm and Estonia at 3.30pm and Greece again at 7.30pm. A further match follows on Wednesday morning against Czechia with the final play-off games taking place that evening.