Achievements

Step up, hold and march on - Third XI Saga

2022 was the year of Tiger, associated with adventure and unpredictability. Sutton challengers as a club went through a major transformation in the year 2022, which turned out adventurous and unpredictable for all three senior teams.

While, 1st XI and 2nd XI moved out of Surrey Cricket League to join the Surrey County League, to carve out path for the club, 3rd XI was tasked to step up and hold 2nd XI's position in Surrey Cricket League.

It required 3rd XI to wear big boys shoe and lock horns with the 1st, and the 2nd teams of other competing clubs.

3rd XI had a nervous start losing their first game to London Welsh. Batting first LW scored 241 in 40 overs, 60 wides being the biggest contributor. 3rd XI could only manage a mere 151 run in 39.3 over, but as is said, there is always a silver lining around dark clouds. Skipper Thulasi braved 74 balls to score well fought 22 runs and held one end, while Vixit in the lower middle order scored a belligerent 26 run in 45 balls, thus announcing 3rd XI was here to stay.

The next game against Raynes park was surely challenging but not challenging enough for the 3rd XI. Team hunted down RP, winning by 16 runs. Turns out, Match of the match was Teamwork as 8 players managed to score more than 15, with Skipper Thulasi leading from front and scoring tedious 30 runs along. Ever reliable Mandar scoring a solid 37.

The season was pretty sinusoidal. May month saw team a 50% win percentage, June the win percentage shot up to 67%, July was consistent with 60%. However toward the fag end of the season, win percentage dropped quite significantly primarily due to unavailability of key members and the skipper missing out few matches.

Amidst all the ups and downs, 3rd XI fought hard and so hard that it ended up grabbing a 6th spot in the league and managed to hold its position in div1 for the year 2023. Incidentally, 5th spot was taken by Brentford CC, which lost both its game to 3rd XI. In actuality, 3rd XI should've been 5th and if the close matches went their way, who knows they may have grabbed a 2nd or a 3rd position.

Take a bow 3rd XI for surviving one of the harshest season and traversing through an unknown terrain very successfully. You were asked to step up and hold position and you have done the club proud by doing just that. 2023 is time to march on to premiership!

Shout out to the warriors for their heroics:

1) Skipper Thulasi for leading with example and scoring 348 runs.

2) Bhoomi for his 148 making him etch his name on Surrey cricket League's honour's board.