Notwithstanding some off-field ✨developments✨ mid-week, the 3s looked to carry on from where they left off after last week’s dismantling of Richmond. I will be making no further comment on those developments at this stage. Cricket was instead the more important topic at hand on Saturday, where we hosted Highgate 3s on home turf. Kenton did not win the toss, and, as has been the case in many home games where the toss of the coin has not landed in our favour, we were bowling, it turned out to be a ‘good toss to lose’.

Bereft of our usual opening strike bowler, missing his first and only game of this season, the new ball duties fell to Abhi and Jameel who set about making light work of their top order. Rarely missing their lengths, they hit consistently good areas and had the oppo reduced to 26-6 in next to no time. Only when the ball started to get older did batting become easier and a couple of partnerships started to develop. We took breakthroughs at important times, keeping the score in check, but a 35 run last wicket partnership between two wily old veterans of the game took their score to 154 all out. Not a bad effort from where they were, but the talk going into the interval was that if we just batted 45 overs, we would win the game.

In the end we only needed to bat 20.3 overs to chase down their total, with the wicket so true that anything short of length would sit up to be hit for four. Soneji and the skipper put on 100 for the first wicket in next to no time, and the game was in our control from there. After the fall of the skipper, Jameel and Kaushlendra then came in, but they too got out in an effort to win the game quickly, we ended up securing a comfortable victory by 7 wickets.

Continuing on from our strong performance last week, we showed we were the superior team this week in all facets of the game. Uncertainty still remains on what our final league position will be come the end of the season, but what this performance showed was that we will keep going and give our all until the end. Next week we will be hosting North Middlesex 4s where we will look to get one over against them for the first time in a while and finish off our season on a high note. Til’ then...