Badgers Cricket Club – What’s New Archive 2021

Hopefully all interested parties will already know that the annual dinner and awards presentation will be taking place on Saturday 20th November, will have filled out their menu choices and have paid for their meal. If you feel you have been missed out and would like to be there please contact the skipper immediately. Now that the 2021 season is set in stone I am able to bring you the season report which will be used to inform the destination of some of the cups on the night (although no doubt you have all already worked out who is getting what from the Play-Cricket statistics pages, which is why we don’t hold this back until after the dinner these days).

All of the other pages have been updated with the 2021 figures, including all decade by decade averages pages, the personal pages (for which we have no brand new qualifiers, but Amy got her page back having played enough this past season to qualify again and will not ever lose it now) and the individual records page. In addition you can now find historical results for 2021 along with the leading performances and partnerships for the season just gone.

As ever the end of season update brings a lot of (mostly automatic) changes under the covers, so if you see anything that looks wrong please let me know and I will endeavour to sort it out.

A lovely afternoon and evening saw the Badgers and Woodmansterne finish the 2021 season in fine style, with the home side claiming the season series by winning this decider. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

Now that the final game is in the record books I will start on the end of season processing, most of which is automated these days, so expect to see the usual barrage of new entries for the 2021 season report before very long (maybe even tomorrow if all goes swimmingly).

Also, my apologies but the previous update may have made it onto the public web server after the fact, due to an error in the script that uploads the changes. Fortunately it did not stop a handful of one time Badgers turning up to watch the current team play their final game of 2021 whilst reminiscing on how things were different in their day :)

Our third visit of the season to play Woodmansterne tomorrow will hopefully see the season end with a game of cricket. Details have been added to the fixtures page.

Sadly last week’s visit to Hampton Wick saw the Badgers comfortably win the ‘staying after the game’ period of the day, with all bar the barmaid having left the building before any Badger did so and with a dozen Badgers still in situ at four in the afternoon, despite the fact that the game was rained off not long after the intended start at one. Way to prop the bar up team!!

A game has been arranged for tomorrow, Sunday 19th, against Hampton Wick Royal on their ground in Bushy Park. Details have been added to the fixtures page but sadly I have not found time to update the Google Map.

Another ‘home’ game last Sunday, against another new opposition in Christchurch, saw the Badgers record another good win. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

Sadly we ended up not playing today, a real shame given the weather, because the outfit that Mark arranged a game against called in sick on Saturday morning with half the team apparently testing positive for COVID-19.

Our 35th visit to Blindley Heath saw the Badgers notch up their 15th win against the home side with no interference from the weather this week. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

A return to Banstead for the first time since the aborted visit of 2018 and again the weather made the end of the match a less pleasant experience than it ought to have been, with the dark clouds that had been looming as the second inning progressed finally dumping on all concerned. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

Our second game of the season against Putney – this time away from home, although not at their main ground on Putney Common. Sadly the pitch at Barn Elms Sports Centre was one of the worst I have ever played on, with the whole playing field covered with goose guano to make things even less pleasant, and the resultant contest was far from satisfactory. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

PLEASE NOTE that tomorrow’s game with Putney will not be at their home ground on Putney Common but instead will be at the Barn Elms Sports Centre and will start at one o’clock rather than one thirty. The fixtures page has been updated accordingly.

Sadly there is nothing else to report on the cricketing front as our games have been rained off for the past two Sundays.

PLEASE NOTE that we will not be playing our original opposition and might, conditions permitting, be playing another ‘home’ game on the back pitch at Woodmansterne tomorrow, against a new opponent in Mpingwe CC. The fixtures page has been updated accordingly.

PLEASE NOTE that this weekend’s game has been cancelled due to the fact that, for the first time this season, we are unable to raise an eleven.

A baking hot day last Sunday saw the Badgers fall to their fourth defeat of the season by the narrowest of margins. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

A first ever ‘home’ game against Horley, who we last played back in 2017 on their ground, saw the Badgers unable to chase down a potentially modest total on a slow track at Woodmansterne Street. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

We have another ‘home’ game arranged for this coming Sunday, an early start for a game against Horley who we have visited half a dozen times in the past decade. The fixtures page has been updated accordingly.

For the second week running we got really lucky with the weather, barring a delayed start and one short sharp shower, completing a game against Oxted & Limpsfield on the old Limpsfield ground. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

Tomorrow’s game with Oxted & Limpsfield has been moved from the usual location on the main ground in Oxted to the old Limpsfield ground off Grub Street on Limpsfield Common, a few kilometres further east along the A25. The fixtures page has been updated with the new details as has the Google Map with locations of our 2021 opposition.

Our second visit to Woodmansterne to play the home side saw us battling through some early showers to restrict the home side to a relatively low total and coast home for the win before the weather closed in again. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

Tomorrow’s game with Ripley has been cancelled and we are back at Woodmansterne for a second bite at the home side. The fixtures page has been updated but I am sure that most can find their way without any trouble.

Back to the more familiar away games this week, with our annual visit to Tadworth and another fine all round performance from the Badgers in the twentieth meeting between the two teams, albeit after a shaky start. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

A rather unfortunate turn of events in the baking heat at Woodmansterne against first-time opponents Merton last Sunday, with the Badgers spending the first innings endeavouring to set up an interesting contest and then somewhat negating the effort by opening with Jake who destroyed the opposition bowling attack. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the detailed scorecard, and the traditional Badgers’ focused scorecard.

Sunday’s original fixture at Ottershaw has been replaced by another ‘home’ game to facilitate the celebration of Dawn’s birthday (otherwise we were not going to be able to raise an eleven, as I understand it). The new opposition, who are also new opponents for us best as I can tell, are one of three teams that Merton CC field on a Sunday. The fixtures page has full details.

A pleasant afternoon at Woodmansterne on Sunday against a new opponent in Mogador Wanderers, who handed out a sound beating in the end in what nevertheless was a good game of cricket played in the right spirit. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.

Another ‘home’ game this coming Sunday, against a new opponent in Mogador Wanderers, on the back pitch at Woodmansterne. The fixtures page has full details.

Finally summer arrived along with our first ‘home’ game of the season on the back pitch at Woodmansterne against Putney. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.

We have a ‘home’ game arranged for tomorrow on the back pitch at Woodmansterne against Putney, which if the weather is kind to us later in the year may end up being the first home and away we have played in a very long time. Pleae check the fixtures page for full details including the earlier than usual start time.

Another chilly and this time damp Sunday afternoon but at least we managed to squeeze in a game between a heavy shower just before the start time and things closing in for good about six in the evening, with Woodmansterne giving us a good pasting in between. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.

Sadly last week’s visit to Dormansland was cancelled the day before due to heavy rains but we had had a pleasant afternoon the Sunday before last on Ham Common, slightly warmer than the previous weeks, albeit slightly spoiled by one of their number top edging a pull shot into his face – fortunately nothing was broken, just a fair bit of claret spilled. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.

Another sunny but fairly chilly afternoon last Sunday saw the Badgers return to Leatherhead for the first time since 2014, although I have no idea why we stopped playing them after the excitement of that particular game. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.

I cannot for the life of me work out why this has not been done before, but I have changed the scorecard links from the match reports pages to take you to the detailed scorecards rather than the old-school Badgers’ data only versions, where they exist obviously. The running results pages continue to link to the match report and the appropriate half of the old scorecard for technical reasons too boring to detail.

The 2021 season got underway, on time thank goodness, with a beautifully sunny but at times bitterly cold day at Otford for our traditional opener against Beechwood. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.

As ever the start of the new season brings a large number of changes to this site, most of them under the covers and pretty much all of them automated in some way or other, but it takes a great deal of time to check everything and I might have missed a mistake or other discrepancy, so please shout if you see anything that looks out of whack.

The fixtures page has been updated with the provisional list for the 2021 season, including map links and the now standard Google map with the locations of our opposition. First game is today at Beechwood!!

In testing the updated fixtures I have discovered that at some point in the (presumably) recent past Streetmap stopped supporting the URI format that we had been using for map links since forever so I’ve corrected all of them, even on pages that are no longer active and visible to the outside world, to a format that they do support. Please let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work as expected.

One of the side effects of adding the data for 2020 is that a lot of the historical statistics pages rolled over into an extra page (they are collected together by decade, but we don’t create a new page until there are two years to include on it) which also meant adjusting the menus at the top of the page. Historically that has been done by hand, but in doing so for the last update I remembered that this is a chore I have always wanted to get rid of. As a result I have written code to construct the cascades of entries for those sub-menus made up of years or blocks of years and thus automated that chore out of existence. As a side effect I discovered that 1984 had not been added everywhere that it should have been but you were all too polite to mention it. Nothing should be missing from the menus now but the layout of some of them has changed now that the shape is decided by an algorithm rather than the human eye. Again, please let me know if you find anything anomalous.

Whilst the 2020 season was rather curtailed, due to not starting until the last weekend in July, we still played enough cricket to make it worthwhile publishing a season report and giving out the usual awards off the back of the averages therein. However, the current situation still prevents us from actually getting together to hand out the cups to those concerned, but hopefully the time will come before too long when we can do just that.

All of the other pages have been updated with the 2020 figures, including all decade by decade averages pages, the personal pages (for which we have no new qualifiers but sadly neither Amy nor Matt Smith meet the criteria any more and have lost theirs) and the individual records page. In addition you can now find historical results for 2020 along with the leading performances and partnerships for the season just gone.

As ever the end of season update brings a lot of (mostly automatic) changes under the covers, so if you see anything that looks wrong please let me know and I will endeavour to sort it out. I will also try to get the fixture list updated here to complement the one on Play-Cricket.

Unfortunately the 2020 season ended in the disappointment of not being able to get a game despite having a team and the resulting funk has extended all the way through the off season to one week shy of the possible beginning of the 2021 season. Rather than trying to straighten everything out in one go this update fills in the blanks from the final game we did play, which should have happened by the weekend of 27th September, and I will make at least one more update before next weekend to add a season report.

PLEASE NOTE that the fixture details for 2021 are available on our Play-Cricket site, and the first game is barely more than a week away. I hope to update the fixture list on this site before the season starts but the initial focus will be on the activities that would normally happen before and after the annual awards dinner, which did not take place last year due to the restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

From last September:
Another lovely sunny autumnal afternoon for our third game at Woodmansterne this summer, although less successful than our previous ‘home’ game. The usual summarised details of the game can be found on the results page along with a statistical notes only match report, the traditional pertinent elements from the scorecard and the not-so new-fangled detailed scorecard.