Badgers Cricket Club – Season 2015 Match Reports
This page holds the match reports for all games played during the 2015 season. The links below provide a direct route to the report for each game plus access to the reports for seasons from 2000 to the present. It is also possible to link to them from the associated rolling results page entries and I hope to extend that facility to include all of the historical results pages, once I’ve figured out the best method of doing so.
Unless otherwise noted both summary and full match reports were written by your host and webmaster, Steve Pitts, as were all editorial comments and statistical notes. For reasons that are now lost in the mists of time, the reports are laid out in reverse chronological order, but hopefully the links above make that an unimportant detail.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: Despite having worked out in advance what he needed to score, and putting himself at number four in order to have a better chance (the first time he has batted above seven since July last year), Mark fell just nine runs shy of becoming the highest run scorer for the club. Alan Tickner’s record is safe for the next seven months, but not much beyond that you would reckon.
This was Allan Butt’s 285th game for the club, potentially taking him one game beyond Brian Moore into sixth place all time. There is the usual doubt, centering around the missing 1981 scorebook, with Brian possibly having played between one and three more games than recorded but we will give Al that sixth place on the basis that we have no way of knowing for sure. Here’s hoping that he is back playing again next year to remove any doubt.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: Jake passed the 500 run mark for the season for the second year running, becoming only the fifth Badger to do so in two or more seasons – after Darren Hanley, Alan Tickner, his Dad Mark (who reached the landmark for the seventh time last week) and Pat Redding.
This game was Greggy’s 247th for the club, which might tie him for ninth most all time with Richard Kemp, and he made his 218th visit to the middle as a batter, tying him for 12th all time with Foxy.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: Jake came off grumbling about missing out on the century partnership but the 97 runs that he and his Dad put on for the sixth wicket, in addition to being the joint sixth best for that wicket, was also their best together, beating the 77 they put on for the seventh wicket at Whiteley Village earlier this year. Mark’s 95 was his sixth score in the nineties, to put with the five centuries he has to his name, but only the second time he has been out in that range.
This was the second time this year, and the fourth time in four seasons, that the Badgers haved successfully chased a target of 200 or more. Prior to 2003 it had only happened once and including the four times that year we have done so 13 times since.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: It is impossible to say for certain, since the information is not recorded, but I would speculate that this was quite possibly the highest tenth wicket partnership against us and almost certainly the highest proportion of the oppononent’s total runs scored.
It is a long time since we made such a poor fist of chasing down such a low score, with the 2002 match against Leigh being the last time we failed to reach 75 whilst chasing a target of less than 150.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: By playing in this game Mark broke a record (that he held jointly with himself) for the most consecutive games played by a Badger, having appeared in all of the last 38 matches that counted towards the averages. The streak started against Westcott two seasons ago and encompasses 26 wins, seven losses and five draws. Given that the previous joint longest streak of 37 ended the week before this current one started, the skipper has now played in 75 of the club’s last 76 games (in fact, it is 76 of 77, but my logic ignores matches that were abandoned and thus has a blind spot for the 2013 Horsley & Send game).
The draw was greeted with the usual negative reaction in the Badgers’ dressing room, despite it being the most common result against these opponents – 16 of the 29 games played have ended that way. It might also be worth pointing out that four of the last eleven such have been with the Badgers batting second. Having said that, there have only been two other games in club history that were not weather affected where the team batting second lost so few wickets in pursuit of a total they got nowhere near chasing down, namely the 1998 conference fixture at North Holmwood, where we were set 231 to win and fell well short despite a century from Dave Tickner, and the 1975 game against Grindlays Bank, where we set them 219 to win, in what turned out to be only 36 overs, and they finished on 158 for 3.
As Bill’s innings progressed there was speculation about what would happen if he managed to get through the whole season without ever being dismissed – he came into the game having scored 138 runs across six unbeaten innnings but his eventual dismissal meant that he has scored 196 runs for once out, giving him that total as an average and eliminating the potential dilemma. To date nobody has managed to get through a season unbeaten and only three Badgers have qualified for the averages (five innings or more) whilst only being out the once – Michael Preston in 1965, Roy Gordon in 1981 and Alan Wilkes in 2001 – but none of them scored anything like as many runs. The closest comparable performance is probably Foxy in 1989, when he made 144 runs from 11 innings with 9 not outs. For what it’s worth, which is probably not a lot, my answer to the dilemma of zero outs from five or more innings would be to award the batting trophy to anyone that managed it as long as they had scored more runs than the highest average (which Bill clearly would have done had his streak continued).
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: This was the Badgers’ lowest score in a completed innings since being bowled out for 58 chasing 173 at Ripley in 2013. The last time we performed so poorly batting first was against Burgh Heath in 2002 when we managed just 59 all out. Matt also set me a poser by asking what was the lowest ever score for a completed innings that was not all out (something the assembled throng had apparently been thinking about whilst Alec and Mark were batting together) but investigating that question has led me up one or two blind alleys. Anyway, I will ignore the diversions which related to a game that was only the second lowest, and say that the simple answer to the question is 59 for 9, which was our final score in the drawn game against Seveno in 1980. Chasing a target of just 64 the Badgers failed to reach it despite receiving 41 overs, during which one of the opposition bowlers delivered eight consecutive maidens, four of them wicket maidens, on his way to figures of 20 overs, 11 maidens, 8 wickets for 22 runs!!
By pretty much any measure this was by far and away Matt Smith’s best bowling performance for the club – he had not taken more than two wickets in a game previously – and 5 for 11 ties the best figures (with Bill last year at Westfield) since Mark took seven against Dormansland in 2012. The all around impressiveness of the spell is reflected in the fact that there have only been four previous occasions in limited overs games when a bowler has delivered their full allocation for eleven runs or less and only six previous occasions when five wickets (or more) have been taken in a limited overs contest where the bowlers were restricted to eight overs or less.
| Date | Opponent | Who | No. | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets |
| 16 Sep 2012 | Tadworth | Rob Knew | 3 | 8.0 | 3 | 9 | 2 |
| 6 Jul 2014 | Ripley | Mark Gordon | 2 | 8.0 | 3 | 9 | 0 |
| 27 Jul 2014 | Weybridge Vandals | Darrell Pitts | 6 | 8.0 | 5 | 11 | 3 |
| 21 Sep 2014 | Ockley | Darrell Pitts | 2 | 8.0 | 2 | 10 | 2 |
| 23 Aug 2015 | Deando | Matt Smith | 1 | 8.0 | 5 | 11 | 5 |
| NB. Limited Overs contests only | |||||||
| Date | Opponent | Who | No. | Overs | Maidens | Runs | Wickets |
| 26 May 1996 | Parktown | Alan Tickner | 6 | 7.5 | 0 | 25 | 6 |
| 25 Aug 2007 | Morden Corinthians | Ian Gregg | 1 | 8.0 | 1 | 29 | 5 |
| 20 May 2012 | Stoke D'Abernon | Guy Walker | 7 | 6.0 | 0 | 25 | 5 |
| 19 Jul 2013 | Iscoyd & Fenns Bank | Richard Knew | 4 | 6.0 | 1 | 23 | 5 |
| 13 Jul 2014 | Westfield | Jake Gordon | 1 | 7.4 | 3 | 19 | 5 |
| 13 Jul 2014 | Westfield | Bill Jenkins | 3 | 4.0 | 2 | 11 | 5 |
| 23 Aug 2015 | Deando | Matt Smith | 1 | 8.0 | 5 | 11 | 5 |
| NB. Limited Overs contests only | |||||||
Ben’s two catches in this game took him into a tie and then past Mick Willmott for tenth place in the list of all-time outfield catchers, finishing on 61. With the two places immediately above him also occupied by active players (Ian Gregg and Allan Butt) it might be a while before he catches either or them, and he is still 17 behind seventh place Simon Fox.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: The 163 that Matt Smith and Bill put on is the fourth highest in club history for the first wicket, the sixth highest for any wicket, the highest since Alan Tickner and Pat Redding combined for the best ever partnership (against Epsom Methodists in 2004) and the first 100 run opening stand since Pat and Guy’s brother Simon added exactly 100 in a tour game at Cholmondeley in 2011 (which did not count towards the averages).
I was quite surprised after the game to discover that this was Matt’s first ever fifty in any form of cricket, and he came so close to converting it to a maiden hundred (something that his opening partner did with his first fifty). The 95 that he did make is the best individual score for the Badgers since Mark’s unbeaten 124 at Tadworth in 2013.
Whilst Wardy himself seemed convinced otherwise, he is now tied with Brian Moore and Brent Noble on 89 lifetime outfield catches and needs just one more to move into fourth place in the list on his lonesome. Ian Gregg, having now played 243 times for the Badgers, passed Barry Passmore into tenth place on the list of most appearances for the club, and indeed needs only four more to join Richard Kemp in ninth place on that list. Of course, the usual provisos around the 1981 scorebook apply to the numbers for both Barry and Richard, with my statistical analyses suggesting that both of them might have as many as five more games played in that missing data, although my best guess would be no more than one extra for Richard and two or three for Barry, so another half a dozen appearances by Ian should seem him in undisputed possession of ninth place.
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In contrast to the miserable weather on tour, Sunday’s visit to Horley was blessed with sunshine as the Badgers took the field. Rob and Bill opened the bowling and found themselves only dealing with their numerical counterparts. The home side's skipper Byles-Wilding (25) took full toll of every slightly loose delivery that Rob sent down, whilst it was all his partner could do to keep Bill out. In the end Rob dismissed them both, bowling the number one with a jaffa and then eliciting a catch from number two, who was perhaps over-excited at finally managing to change ends and get away from Bill. Number three then squirted Bill into the gully where Greggy took a smart diving catch and by the time Vinny came on as first change the home side were struggling at 40 for 3 from 13 overs.
The change didn’t favour the home team, however, with Vinny ripping out numbers four to six in his first eleven deliveries before attracting hoots of derision from his highly supportive teammates when the twelfth, a hat trick ball following the castling of numbers five and six, was a wide long hop that the newly arrived number eight bat clattered to the cover boundary. That bat was Matt Gainsford, who then had to watch whilst his first two partners fell without troubling the scorers, or Mark who snaffled two identical dolly catches off a couple of the balls from Pete’s two overs that were close enough for the batsmen to reach.
That phase of the game ended when the fall of that eighth wicket saw Horley at 66 for 8 from one ball short of nineteen overs. Number ten Childs then helped to add 56 to the total with his partner being particularly hard on any bad balls, taking a particular liking to Badgers’ debutant MA (a last-minute stand in after a late cry off by Ricky). The introduction of Jake and re-introduction of Bill then slowed the scoring rate and the former ended Childs’ stay by knocking back his stumps. Matt was then joined by his father Andy and the Badgers got a slice of luck because the scoreboard showed his score as 49 at that point and we suspect that he would not have taken a quick single and left his old man to take five balls from Bill had he realised that actually he already had his half century in the bag. As it was Bill only needed two of those deliveries to entice a third catch to the skipper and Horley were all out for 123 with Matt unbeaten on 51.
The Badgers innings got off to a brisk start but when my pulled hamstring was sandwiched by a six and out from Pete and a rare failure for Jake, we found ourselves in a little spot of bother. However, MA and Wardy steadied the ship and maintained the same run rate to the extent that when MA was out for 31 the score of 66 after 14 overs was exactly double what it had been after seven. As it turned out that success was the final wicket for the home side and Alec (19 no.) helped Wardy, who finished unbeaten on 41, see the visitors home with few alarms and more then eleven overs to spare.
Statistical Notes: These were Vinny’s best bowling figures for the club, not just in the traditional meaning of the term – this was his first three wicket haul, bettering a pair of two wicket performances in 2013 – but also in terms of economy (for anything more than two overs in a game). Alec also contributed his best ever score for the club, bettering his 13 from two years ago at RS Casuals, finishing up not out (something that he has done just once before) and clobbering the winning runs to boot!
Whilst all of them were fairly straightforward on this occasion, this is the 27th time that Mark has caught three outfield catches in a game. When I last looked at this, back in the middle of 2013, the full data only went back to 1987. I have since added two more historical seasons and Mark still has considerably more than everyone else put together over that span – with the field only accounting for another 22 instances – but Alan Tickner now leads the also-rans with four such games, and no doubt has a fair few more in the sixteen seasons that he played which aren’t (yet) recorded in the database.
My aborted innings was the 445th time I have batted for the Badgers in games that counted towards the averages, moving me into second place (well) behind Alan Tickner, who played 505 innings for the club – averaging 13.5 innings per season over the 37 years before the golf club captaincy interrupted his progress.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: This is the first time in club history that the Badgers have used eleven bowlers in an innings. In fact we’ve only used ten bowlers on three previous occasions, against Heythrop Park in 1999, Beechwood in 2011 and Malpas in 2012 (when we fielded twelve players).
This was only the fifth occasion (in 51 games) that Pete has bowled for the Badgers and his 3 for 15 represent by far and away his best bowling performance.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: This draw ended a streak of six consecutive wins, the fifth longest such streak in club history. We have won seven on the bounce on three separate occasions, including last season in the run up to tour, and nine in a row in early 2005.
Jake’s 89 is his highest score for the club and 37 runs into his innings he passed the one thousand run plateau, the 29th Badger to rack up that many and assuredly the youngest ever to do so. Not unsurpisingly, given how well he has been batting over the past year or so, he also continues to climb up the lifetime averages, with only sixteen Badgers above him on the list as I type this. He also turned in his second best bowling performance for the club, behind only his five-fer at Westfield a year ago, so not a bad all-round game in front of the beer festival crowd.
The 91 that Jake and Mark compiled is only the twelfth best in Badgers’ history for the sixth wicket.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: In his seventh over in this game Jake reached the 500 lifetime overs milestone, becoming the 25th Badger to send down that many. A few overs prior to that time his old man took sole possession of third place in the lifetime wickets category (cf. last week’s statistical notes).
Graham Ward’s innings in this game was his 182nd for the club, taking him past Foxy into 12th place on his own on the list of lifetime innings. He might also manage to pass 11th place Badger Pete Legge (who played 189 innings) before the season is out, but tenth place will have to wait until next year.
This was the first time since South Park Manor last year that a game has ended with the Badgers batting and someone without the surname Gordon at the wicket!!
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: Ricky’s half century was his first for the Badgers, beating his previous best of 23 recorded against Horley last year, whilst Jake’s innings was his second best behind his 78 in last season’s visit to Ripley.
Mark’s wicket in this game tied him with Mick Willmott for third most lifetime wickets, on 375 – which is an impressive number but pales into insignificance up against the pair above them on that list: Alan Tickner snared 942 whilst Brian Moore has 965 scalps to his name.
Allan Butt turned out in this one for the first time since 2013, replete with a new hip, and the fact that he bowled means that he is now in undisputed second place on the list of Badgers that have bowled at least one over in the largest number of seasons – 32 of them in Al’s case, behind only Alan Tickner who bowled at least a dozen overs in 38 different seasons.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: At the end of his fourth over Rob notched up his one hundredth maiden for the Badgers, the nineteenth bowler to record that many. In this day and age, when economy rate seems to be viewed as the key bowling statistic, the maiden is a somewhat overlooked metric, but a 19.3% clip is impressive in modern times, and only Bill (27.1%) of the active players has a better ratio of maidens to overs bowled – although neither is anywhere near Brian Moore’s 31.8% (imagine, nearly a third of his overs weren’t scored off).
This was the twenty-first time that Mark has scored more than 40 runs whilst remaining not out at the end of a successful Badgers’ run chase, a feat that no-one else has managed more than eight times (dating back to 1985, which is currently the first season for which I have the necessary detail). One interesting side note from my investigations into such occurrences, is that nobody other than Pat Redding has done so whilst recording a century, but Pat did it on four occasions (out of seven total)!!
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: Jake’s second wicket in this game was his one hundredth for the club, the twenty-third Badger to reach that milestone and almost certainly the youngest ever to do so.
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: This was Wardy’s 200th game for the club, making him only the fifteenth Badger to play that many games, and halfway through his innings he passed Albert Briscoe into twelfth all-time in run scoring for the club.
By the end of his first over Rob had reached the five hundred over mark for the club – a feat of endurance matched by only twenty-three Badgers previously. Bill’s five-fer was his second for the club, and the first since he and Jake shared the spoils against Westfield last year.
The unbeaten 80 that Mark and Bill posted in winning the game is only the eighth best seventh wicket partnership in club history
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My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: This time last year Jake’s highest score for the Badgers was 28. Since then he has reached 50 on eight occasions, matching the number of fifties scored by all other Badgers over that span. Unselfishly he was out off the last ball of the innings trying to push the score to 200, a suitable coda to a nicely paced knock. He and his Dad had added 77 runs for the seventh wicket, the eighth best for that wicket in club history.
I have always considered the Badgers to be better off chasing a score in a limited overs game, rather than setting one, but the figures do not tie up with that hypothesis – we have won 11 of the last 13 such games we’ve played whereas when we bat second we have lost five times in the last 13 (and have 13 wins against 11 losses since the start of 2012). The pattern repeats over the club’s history, where we have played 84 completed limited overs matches that counted towards the end of season averages and batted first in 25 of them. Our record chasing the target is 33 wins and 26 losses, whilst setting one it is 25 wins versus 8 losses
View the detailed scorecard of this game
My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
View the detailed scorecard of this game
My apologies for the lack of a report for this game, but nothing was written at the time and there is little or no chance of that changing now
Statistical Notes: The shift to more limited overs games means that Jake’s fourteen overs are more than anyone bowled in a single game last season and the most since Darrell sent down fifteen overs at Blindley Heath in 2013.
Matt Mann’s 49 was his best ever score for the club and (perhaps it is cruel of me to point this out) more than he managed across six innings last season. Need to keep playing to maintain the momentum Matthew :)
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The season got underway with a familiar fixture in an unfamiliar slot in the calendar and once the water had been carried off of the square on the tarpaulin on which it had been lying, the weather was kind and the game proceeded uninterrupted, albeit in very blustery conditions. Given the fact that the Badgers were only able to field ten and the home side had a first teamer or two in their lineup, the captains colluded on arrangements for the game and the Badgers took the field in a timed game. Bill and Amy opened the bowling with the latter’s run up, already the longest in the club by some margin, seemingly even longer, and with an extra yard of pace, since last season. She beat the bat regularly, moving the ball in both directions, but it was Bill who reaped the early rewards, nipping out numbers two and three during his first nineteen balls. The home side’s progress slowed to a crawl, with skipper Hills rendered almost strokeless (taking 7 balls to get off the mark but then not troubling the scorers for the rest of his 52 ball stay).
Change bowlers Jake and Rob kept the pressure on and both were rewarded as opener Garry Foreman (38) and the becalmed Hills fell within a few balls of each other, with Weybridge finding themselves on 62 for 4 from 22 overs. However, their number six looked like a class act from the get go and despite Guy and Mark removing three of his partners, almost singlehandedly dragged the score to 183 for 7 at the end of the 40th over, at which point his skipper declared the innings with Singh unbeaten on 92. It was a fair target but might have been rather lower had the visitors caught even half of the eight or nine catches that went begging, with Mark remarkably dropping four of them, all bowled by his offspring.
A smashing tea, apparently the work of a first time tea lady, was followed by a fairly pedestrian reply by the visitors with Wardy contributing just one of the 25 run opening partnership before being run out, by a direct hit from Singh deep in the covers, trying to stretch that run to two. Rob followed soon after for a golden duck and when Steve (37) played all around a straight one in the over before the start of the last 20, the Badgers found themselves still 124 runs shy of their target with, moments later, just four wickets left.
The time was ripe for a Pete Snook cameo, but that was not meant to be and when Jake (21) was bowled his Dad and sister were left with a mountain to climb. They did what they could, running themselves into the ground – including an all run four – in the process, but the task was just too much and with Mark (38) poking back a caught and bowled with six overs and the better part of 60 runs left, the game petered out to a draw with Amy unbeaten on 22.
Statistical Notes: Late on in his innings Mark passed 9000 runs for the club, inching ever closer to Alan Tickner’s club record 9566. At his recent scoring rate per innings he might take over the prime position before the end of the season, although if I were a betting man then early next season looks a more likely punt.
By playing in this game I have now joined Dave Tickner in having played at least one game in 39 different seasons, the most in club history. Alan Tickner continues to head both Dave and I in terms of number of seasons qualifying for the averages, since he did it 37 times (36 of which were both batting and bowling) whereas Dave and I only have 36 to our names (17 for both batting and bowling in Dave’s case, just two in mine).