10/08/24
RUNNING INTO FORM
Runs for Sutton before Karan runs through Bluntisham
Camden (20pts) 226-5 beat Bluntisham (pts) 113 by 113 runs
After last week’s win, confidence was high of a repeat as the Thirds hosted basement-dwellers Bluntisham. All the more so after Captain Redfern won the toss and chose to bat first. It pays to stay in the present, to focus on the ball. Not the previous ball, and certainly not a ball from the previous match. But try telling that to Redders (26), who was bowled playing a sweep shot that he’d played against Cam Kerala. The skipper had enjoyed that one, but there was to be no repeat of the sweetly-timed boundary. Still, another fifty-plus opening stand with Sutton – the pair adding 58 in ten overs. Batley joined Sutton, who managed to get through the fretful forties to notch a third half century of the season. Despite only finding the boundary on four occasions, Batley and Sutton looked odds on to bring up a hundred partnership. But with Hugo bowled for an excellent 59, the hard-running pair would have to make do with a season’s best 93. The wickets of Sourav (2) and Robinson (7) ushered in Farid, who smashed 22 from 12 balls to take the score beyond 200. To 226-5, ultimately, with Krishna (1*) and Sutton (76*) adding the finishing touches. It later emerged that Sutton, who only hit four boundaries, had run an estimated 152 runs. Days after the tragic news of Graham Thorpe’s passing, it was a fitting tribute to the man who famously hit just one boundary while getting to a Test hundred in Lahore.
Queens’ is a long way from Lahore, and the target of 227 seemed equally far off as Farid and Rizwan took the new ball. As so often this season, Rizwan struck early – bowling the Bluntisham skipper. If Rizwan (1-30) was expensive, his replacement was priceless. On bowling a Cam Kerala batsman last week, Karan ‘Deadley’ Derekar had loudly proclaimed “that’s my spot.” The off-spinner hadn’t misplaced it here, hitting the stumps with his first ball. The three-wickets-in-as-many-overs baton had been passed Karan’s way, and with Farid (1-23) getting in on the act thanks to Vish’s second catch of the match, the visitors had slumped to 67-5. Redders (1-19) took a wicket, but this was the Karan show. Three more wickets, all bowled, to finish with 6-13 – the fourth-best figures in the storied history of the Thirds. With eleven overs to go, Krishna (1-10) wrapped things up to seal a win by a whopping 113 runs. Two in two, after none from seven, the Thirds had at last run into some form.
Man of the Match: Karan Derekar