A GUTSY Sutton side were let down by a lack of runs in their tussle with league-leaders St Ives at the weekend.

Despite a positive start with the bat, the home side found runs hard to come by lower down the order and were ultimately short of runs to defend in the field as they slipped to a four-wicket loss.

The defeat sees Sutton fall into the bottom three in Division 2A of the Cambs CCA league with a crunch clash against fellow-strugglers Wimblington next.

Lloyd Brown (35) and Michael Grady (11) had the visitors toiling in the field as Sutton opened the batting in relative comfort.

With the opening pair gone however, the promise of a sizeable score to defend quickly evaporated as the middle and lower orders struggled to get to grips with the Ives attack. A defiant knock of 10 from Karl Covell late in the order kept Ives in the field for a few extra overs as Sutton finished up 99 all out.

Ives’ Devon Jarrett took the plaudits with the ball as he collected 5-24 from a dizzying 10-over spell.

Needing similar heroics to keep them in with a chance of a win, Sutton began steadily but couldn’t quite find the cheap wickets that had benefited their opponents.

To their credit, the home side made Ives’ task all the more difficult with their incessant line and length which made free hits and long hops almost nonexistent. Laxman Singh impressed with his six-over spell which yielded two wickets at a cost of just five runs. Chris Greaves also weighed in with a decent return of 1-9 from his brief three-over spell.

Towards the latter stages of the match, a series of ducks inspired hope of a late comeback and but for a crucial intervention from Ives’ Matthew Dack (10*), the match could so easily have tilted in the home side’s favour.

In the end however, Sutton ran out of runs to defend and Ives had the win wrapped up with little more than 30 overs bowled.