Sixty-Six Runs, Three Wickets, One Match: Curtis Campher Carries Amsterdam Past Dublin and Deeper Into the Play-Off Race

There are all-rounders who contribute to both halves of a match, and there are all-rounders who own both halves of it. Curtis Campher, on Tuesday at Malahide, was the second kind. He made 66 from 31 balls with seven fours and three sixes, and then he came back with the ball and took 3 for 33 in four overs. Dublin Guardians never found a way around him in either innings.

Amsterdam Flames made 214 for 5 after being put in, and won by 59 runs. It is their fifth win of the tournament, it lifts them to 11 points level with Belfast Wolves, and it leaves Dublin at the foot of the table with two points from nine matches. The margin was large; the gap in the middle of the match, when Campher and Bas de Leede were batting together, was larger still.

Dublin's decision to bowl first looked reasonable for about four overs. Yuvraaj Samra went for 6 and Steven Smith for a brisk 20 from 12, and Amsterdam were 34 for 2 in the fourth over. Then de Leede and Campher came together and the innings changed shape. Between the fourth over and the fifteenth they added 115 for the third wicket, and both fell in the space of three balls — 149 for 3, 150 for 4 at the end of the fifteenth.

That double strike might have been Dublin's way back. It was not, because Tim David was still there. David finished 48 not out from 21 balls with five sixes, and after Michael Bracewell went for 2 at 171 for 5, he and Scott Edwards — 15 not out from seven balls — added 43 from the last 16 deliveries. Amsterdam scored 64 from the final five overs. De Leede's 49 from 40 was the patient half of the partnership; Campher's 66 from 31 was the half that made 214 possible.

With the ball, Amsterdam's three wicket-takers shared nine between them. Bracewell's 4-0-14-3 was the tightest spell of the match by some distance — the Guardians could not score at four an over off him while chasing nearly eleven. It follows his 5 for 12 against Edinburgh two days earlier, and it is becoming a pattern rather than a performance.

A chase of 215 needs a start, and Dublin did not get one. David Willey (1) and Muhammad Waseem (0) were both gone inside the first over, and the Guardians were 7 for 2 with the chase six balls old. Harry Tector's 25 from 18 and Daryl Mitchell's 33 took them to 81 for 4 in the twelfth, but by then they needed 134 from 53 balls, better than fifteen an over.

Mitchell's innings is the one Dublin will look at hardest. Thirty-three from thirty-three balls is not a failure in isolation, but in pursuit of 215 it is an innings that consumes more of the chase than it returns. Noah Croes (30 from 22) and Vijay Shankar (32 from 19, two sixes) both scored faster, and Ashwin's 16 not out from 11 at the end had the air of a captain making a point rather than a match.

The bowling had its moment too. Craig Young took 3 for 50 and Ashwin 1 for 29 from his four overs, but Josh Little went wicketless for 43 and the four overs shared by Mitchell, Greaves and Dockrell cost 54. Dublin kept taking wickets at the right time and kept conceding runs in between, which is roughly the story of their tournament.

This was a good batting surface. Amsterdam's 214 was built on a platform of boundaries — the Flames hit 21 fours and 10 sixes — and Dublin still made 155 while losing wickets all through the chase. What stood out was the value of control: Bracewell and Ashwin, the two most economical bowlers on the day at 3.50 and 7.25 an over, were the only bowlers in the match to concede fewer than 30 from four overs. On a pitch like this, the bowler who takes pace off and hits a length is worth more than the one searching for movement.

Campher walked in at 34 for 2 against a side that had just taken two wickets in the fourth over, and left with Amsterdam in total control. His 66 from 31 came at a strike rate of 213 and was the highest score in the match. Then he bowled the full four overs, went for 33, and took three of the nine Dublin wickets.

Some matches are won by a spell and some by an innings. This one was won by a cricketer who refused to choose between them — and on a day when the scoreboard at Malahide kept running, Campher was the one thing on the field that seemed to be moving at exactly the right speed.

We leaned towards Amsterdam in both our preview pieces, and Amsterdam won by 59 runs. The call was right, and some of the reasoning held up well. We said Bas de Leede's composure and Tim David's power gave Amsterdam a ceiling Dublin could not match in the middle and death overs — de Leede made 49 in a century stand and David finished 48 not out from 21. We also said Michael Bracewell's off-spin should thrive at Malahide; he returned 4-0-14-3.

The misses matter as much. Our Dublin player to watch in the blog preview was Craig Young, who did take three wickets but conceded 50. James Vince, whom we backed for a match-winning innings, and Kevin O'Brien, mentioned in our match-page preview, did not appear on the Dublin scorecard. And our match-page preview named Curtis Campher as Dublin's player to watch — he was in fact playing for Amsterdam, and he was the Player of the Match against Dublin. That is an error on our part, and we are recording it plainly here.

After both matches on September 15, the ETPL table reads: Edinburgh Castle Rockers 13 points (NRR +1.378), Rotterdam Dockers 13 (+0.049), Amsterdam Flames 11 (+0.930), Belfast Wolves 11 (+0.608), Glasgow Cosmic 4 and Dublin Guardians 2. Every side has played nine and has one league match left.

The top three qualify — first goes straight to the final on September 20, second and third meet in the Qualifier on September 19. Glasgow can finish on no more than six points and Dublin on no more than four, so neither can reach the top three. Amsterdam, who can reach 13, play Glasgow on September 16. Dublin's last match is against Rotterdam on September 17, where the Guardians cannot qualify but can still decide whether the Dockers reach 15 points or are left waiting on other results.