Badgers Cricket Club – Season 2020 Match Reports
This page holds the match reports for all games played during the 2020 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.
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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: The 48 runs that Darrell is officially recorded as scoring mean that he and Jake were both dismissed for that score this season, something that has only happened once before in club history – in 1995 when Alan Tickner (at Hook Norton) and Jeremy Clayton (at Sunnyside) were both out on that score. There have been four other instances of two or more Badgers recording 48 in the same season, but at least one of those was a not out, including in 1987 when AT did so twice on his own, one out (at Englefield Green) and one not out (at Bletchingly), and Foxy was so impressed he recorded a not out 48 too (at Pearl Assurance).
However, we are fairly sure that there was a scoring error and Darrell should actually have been credited with 49, but his sister recorded the fourth over of the innings as a maiden and thus deprived him of the run by which we swapped ends and made the rest of the scorebook possible. Despite the evidence of that logical inconsistency it was not corrected immediately after the fact and since this paragraph is being written in April 2021 I have decided to leave well alone, which might indeed have been the decision at the time too.
Greggy’s ‘guest’ appearance resulted in his visit to the batting crease tying him with Brett Noble for eighth place on the all-time list of innings for the club on 213, now one ahead of Wardy who had tied him earlier in the season.
With the first of his two catches Mark reached the 450 mark in outfield catches, already more than 250 ahead of anyone else and gradually closing in on my record of total fielding dismissals. I long ago gave up on the idea of staying ahead in that race before Mark was done, something which applies to any of the longevity related records that I currently hold, but the short-term interest lies (at least for me) in which of us gets to 500 first.
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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: Danny’s 3 for 40 was his best ever bowling for the club, having never previously taken more than one wicket in a game. It also featured something that doesn’t show up in the statistics in a delivery that cut a mile off the pitch – right arm over the wicket angled across the batsman, pitching on leg and hitting the top of leg stump – that completely bamboozled the recipient.
With his second fifty in two weeks, Darrell joins Andy Parker, Adrian Cowell and Simon Fox in thirteenth place on the list of Badgers who have reached scores of fifty or more, all of them having done so ten times. Jake, who took just 33 balls to notch up his 30th half century for the club, joins an even more elite group on that list, this time in fifth place, as he is now tied with Brian Moore and Dave Tickner.
Part way through his unbeaten innings Darrell also passed his Great Uncle Allan Butt into 15th place on the all-time run scoring charts, finishing 22 beyond him on 2,435. Vinny provided a very tidy spell of bowling, especially in the context of two half century partnerships for the first two wickets, but when the third ball of his sixth over was hit for four he passed Graham Davenport into 17th place on the all-time runs allowed list. Finally, and one that I missed at the time these notes were written originally, Rob played his 150th game for the club becoming the 25th Badger with that many appearances.
View the detailed scorecard of this game
[This report courtesy of Ricky Cibardo]
A line that I am pretty sure, in the first match report I have volunteered to write, has never been quoted before.
A home game, it should be noted, with pre and post-match tasks that didn’t actually involve drinking, had to be undertaken to be ready to play the away team, Ottershaw, on a bright, sometimes overcast Sunday afternoon.
Confusingly at first, with two stragglers in Wardy and Rob Knew, Amy Gordon not only started but opened the bowling and ended up playing the full game. Note of thanks must go to Graham for stepping down once we had twelve, to leave Amy on the field, which helped as she was already midway through her third over at the time!
Ottershaw batted first with Birdi and Verma threatening to swing all day long, many boundaries and swooshes of the bat ensued but not until Danny Glover had bowled his first over. Contemplating grabbing my tea while we waited for it to finish, it was entertaining and ‘in parts’ caused the batsman issues.
Cries of “Are you sure they know we are playing 40 overs” rang out across the field as the two openers tried to hit every ball for six, it was only a matter of time until they went at one too many, some expert bowling by Amy, pitching the ball slightly short of the slot, was met with another swoosh of the bat that Birdi regretted instantly as yours truly ran back and caught the ball at the second time of asking.
Vinny Cibardo replaced Danny and with Amy still operating at the “sightscreen we had to actually push back and forth” end, the runs started to dry up. They were swinging so much that even the late great Sinatra was jealous, but more and more shots were hacked into the leg side.
Vinny and Amy’s pressure paid off when Shanker, in the quietest he’d been all afternoon, looped the ball straight into a waiting Rod Smith’s grateful clutches. Two down and in trouble.
Missing Billy on his ‘21st’ birthday could have proved a struggle but Badgers were making light work of the innings and when Amy trapped Verma for a spritely 15, Ottershaw were in more trouble.
Mumford came in without his son and from his 19 balls, he smashed 23 quick runs, including a massive hit which, yet again, the hero from last week Nat got a big hand to. Then an absolutely amazing catch by Jake, plucked out of the air at 90 mph, put paid to him. In fact, we didn’t have time to appreciate that enough as in the very next over, from Vinny’s bowling, Singh smacked the ball in Rod’s direction and he jumped up and replicated Jake’s catch. Cries of “We still haven’t dropped one” were always going to come back to haunt someone eventually (Darrell).
Very swiftly Vinny picked up his well-deserved third wicket and Amy grabbed her fourth, in two fantastic bowling spells, leaving Ottershaw precariously placed. That didn’t improve when the, now fully arrived, Rob seemed to pick up two wickets in a flash leaving Ottershaw on 85 for 9.
Now, at this point, we had amassed seven catches among our nine wickets, probably a record but I am sure Pittsy will correct me. So, for artistic licence…
WE BROKE THE CATCHING RECORD IN AN INNINGS!!
(Under other circumstances I might have made the above statement a header like TEA below, but sadly Ricky’s artistic licence is stretching the truth just a little too much for me to do so. You could argue that we tied a record for the number of outfield catches in a game, see the Statistcal Notes below, but we did not really break anything – Statistical Accuracy Ed.)
Now, Darrell is an amazing fielder, one of our best, so with that in mind I won’t mention his shocking drop of the youngster. Definitely won’t mention that at all and it definitely wasn’t off of Skip’s bowling.
After Darrell definitely didn’t drop someone and ruin our perfect catching record, Rob picked up the last wicket, another great catch by Jake but to be fair, any one of five people could have gone for it, however, leave it to bucket hands…
Oh, actually Ricky, don’t worry about eating, we are turning straight round! Seriously, a boy has to eat!!!
I came back from the car with my lunch and Danny and Jake were already padding up. Danny being asked to get his ducks in a row a few weeks back at work, took it quite literally and was without a run in a few innings. Jake was nursing his sixth hangover of the cricket season.
A paltry target to get, Badgers were always going to keep them interested.
Then ensued a very loud cacophony of fielders appealing for everything. That didn’t change, although we kept our heads in most cases. Danny went quickly, after batting nicely, managed to miss an inswinger that was well bowled and cleaned him up.
I went in at three to loud applause and expectation (writer’s licence) but unfortunately the applause was actually lacking and expectation was brazenly low. I got a Mallard (it sounds slightly better)
Would Badgers manage to give this away?
Fortunately, we have ‘Gordons’ – not the Gin, although I am pouring one as I write – the annoyingly talented Gordons and we had them all on the field (minus Dawn) today and knew that we had talent in the hutch.
Rod Smith hit a settling 15 off 46 and Jake was out caught on 16 but that partnership went a long way to sealing the win. Nat played some nice defensive strokes before falling to his first attacking shot in the covers, but it was Darrell Pitts that made up for the catch (that he definitely didn’t drop) with a form continuing 26 off 45 to follow up from his 50 last week to take us nearly home.
So, it was left to the stupidly talented father and daughter of the Gordon variety to finish it off in 34 overs to make it look like quite an easy win (they never are)
Well done to Ottershaw and thank you with massive appreciation to the continued supporters that turn up – this week Katie, Dawn, Paula, The Pitts’ and the Family Jenkins all braved the Woodmenterne winds to watch a consecutive Badgers victory.
Statistical Notes: We will start with Ricky’s record that was not a record – the number of catches in a game. This is the fifth time since 1984 (the first season for which we have full data in the database at the time of writing) that we have snared eight outfield catches in a game, with the first being at Ockley in 2006 and the most recent at Iscoyd & Fenns Bank on tour in 2015. From a fielding dismissals point of view the former game also featured a stumping whilst the 2014 gane at Wallington saw all ten dismissals featuring the fielders with a run out and a caught behind in the mix. (Perhaps this would be a good point at which to admit that I cannot do the fielding dismissals element of this justice as I have no ready way of tracking run outs, especially in the older games – Honesty in Statistics Ed.)
To expand the net a little further in terms of the fielder dismissals we do track, the Woldingham Village game in 2009 also saw all ten dismissed that way, with six outfield catches, one caught behind and three stumpings, whilst there have been ten occasions where there were nine such dismissals. Of those ten half of them were a combination of only wicket keeper and outfield catches, with one of the earliest and most remarkable being a 1990 game at Cudham where only four outfield catches were taken and I grabbed the remainder behind the sticks.
Having come up one short last week, Mark passed 11,000 runs for the club with his first scoring shot, a boundary four, and continues to extend his lead in that category. A few overs earlier, as he passed the halfway mark in his innings of 15, Rod became the 33rd Badger to reach the 1,000 run plateau. Jake batted for the 136th time, taking him out of a tie with my old man into 18th place on the list of lifetime innings for the club. He won’t move up the list again until he reaches the 150 mark but he also added three more catches to his tally and thus took himself out of a tie for fifth place in all-time outfield catches and halfway to matching Wardy in fourth.
The three wickets that Rob took in the game saw him pass 150, and a brief tie with Dave Bowerman and Albert Briscoe, into 14th place on the wicket takers list and only a couple more behind Foxy. After that moving up gets much harder as the pair beyond Simon – Jake and Billy – are very much still active and tenth spot requires going a little way past the 200 mark. Vinny scattered four maidens amongst his eight overs which took him to exactly 100 lifetime, the 22nd Badger to register that many.
Finally a long-standing mark was tied when I stepped on to the field for the 575th time to equal Alan Tickner for most appearances for the club. Whilst this one is obfuscated by the usual lack of accurate games played for those of us that turned out in 1981, on this particular occasion things are even less clear cut because both of us did and thus I might already have passed Al. Indeed my ‘best guess’ estimate, established when first analysing the available information many years ago, is that Al played one extra game in 1981 whilst I played in three more, but from my perspective the key number is three, because that is the maximum number of additional games that AT could have played in 1981 and thus his lifetime appearances figure simply cannot be greater than 578. Once I pass that then I can definitely consider myself to have played more times than anyone else in club history.
View the detailed scorecard of this game
With 25 balls left in this game the Badgers were, to all intents and purposes, dead and buried, with a rampant home side – chasing just 131 to win – sitting on 122 for one wicket down. Bill had been brought back into the attack and that move looked to have back-fired with eleven runs already taken from the over and the young Blindley Heath opening bat sitting pretty on 70 not out. Worse still the Badgers looked a little short of bowling resources with Bill and Jake, who was on at the other end, each having only have one more over left to bowl.
The Badgers innings had proceeded in an all too familiar fashion – that is to say a fairly slow start, followed by a fairly sedate middle and a frantic last few overs – all of which, despite the best efforts of all involved but especially half century maker Darrell, left us perhaps twenty runs short of par as far as most of those involved were concerned. The wicket was slow (unsurprisingly given the quantity of rain that had fallen on it over the previous several days) and fluency was obviously hard to come by, so the visitors were hopeful that a solid bowling performance would give them a chance.
Bill and Vinny kept things tight to start with, a cracking jag-backer from the former accounting for one opener, but numbers one and three weathered that initial storm and just kept chipping away whilst taking a heavy toll of Vinny’s last three overs and a pair from Darrell. Fortunately Mark kept things under control at the other end, Jake was also stingy when introduced into the attack and when Matt replaced the skipper he too was economical. However, keeping the runs under control was not enough and so we find ourselves back where we came in, with Billy brought back into the attack to break the stubborn second wicket partnership and serving up the (joint) most expensive over of the innings, with a ball still to be bowled.
That ball was the first of several that would turn the game on its head, with young Rahul getting a nick trying to thrash a short and fairly wide delivery to the boundary, to end that second wicket stand at 107 runs from 145 balls, and leaving his partner to steer the ship home with just nine needed from four overs. Jake went for just a single off his final over and Billy added his fourth maiden of the innings to bring the requirement to eight from two. Mark then brought Matt back and he was able to limit the scoring to three singles before nipping one some way from off to leg to end number three Ian Britton’s knock five short of a half century.
Six balls left, just five runs to win, and all bar Darrell himself convinced that he was the best option for the final over, despite the tap he had taken earlier. After a period of discussion he succumbed and with the young left hander batting at four somehow finding a gap for his chip to mid off to land in, the next ball was hit firmly to a diving Jake Gordon in the covers to give the Badgers continued hope and bring another new batsman to the crease. A straight one that turned back a little did for the new bat first ball but number seven strode purposefully to the crease looking like he was quite capable of hitting the boundary that his team needed to finish things in their favour.
He obviously had a plan and as the ball was delivered moved immediately to the off side and clattered another straight one on the angle towards long leg. Young Nat fielding at backward square leg flung himself headlong and somehow got both hands to the ball, almost hanging on to an improbable catch, but perhaps more importantly taking most of the pace off the ball such that it fell harmlessly close enough that the batsman chose not to take the available single. One ball left, any valid result still possible thanks to Nat’s heroics, and this time Darrell followed the batsman as he moved to the off side such that the pulled shot went just in front of square where Vinny was able to cut it off before it reached the boundary and get it back in to the keeper in time to prevent the batsmen from even considering taking a third run to tie the game leaving the visitors victorious by a single run.
Statistical Notes: Darrell passed fifty for the ninth time as a Badger, becoming the 16th batsman to do so that many times, Jake took his 89th catch for the club, which puts him into a tie with Brian Moore and Brent Noble in fifth on the list of lifetime outfield catches whilst the first ball of Vinny’s second over took him past David Aldwinckle into 19th place on the lifetime overs bowled.
There is a six showing against Bill’s analysis in the scorebook, but it came courtesy of a two to deep extra cover and an airmailed throw from Jake that not only passed miles over my head but also eluded the grasp of Nat backing up and went to the boundary for four overthrows. There was some subsequent discussion about whether it counted as a tick in the 6s column on the Play-Cricket result and our detailed scorecard but Darrell quashed all further discussion by pointing out that this was directly analagous to the Ben Stokes incident in the 2019 World Cup final and suggesting that we should just treat it the same way as that one was. Turns out that those columns are for boundary hits, so a two plus four does not count and theoretically all run fours shouldn't either.
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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: Jake made his first ever 48 in this game – to go with a 47, three 49s, three 50s, four 52s and a 53 – he really does like those scores around the half century mark. Wardy batted for the 212th time for the Badgers, putting him into a tie for ninth place on the all-time innings list with Richard Kemp and Greggy, with the latter in attendance to witness the event. One more innings is all that is required to join Brent Noble in eighth, so here’s hoping that Graham turns out a couple more times before the season is done.
Bill bowled three maidens which took him to 205 and past both John Rourke and Steve Card into eighth place all-time. Alan Wilkes is next up the road but a long way ahead on 281. The single wicket that Rob snared took him out of a tie for 16th place on the all-time list of wicket takers with Pete Legge and leaves him just one away from 150 lifetime wickets and a tie with both Dave Bowerman and Albert Briscoe.
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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: Over the weekend’s two games, Jake tied and then passed both Mike Law and Ben Valentine into 19th place on the all-time innings list, with my old man only a couple more up the road, whilst Darrell’s two games played took him out of a possible tie with Brent Noble into probable sole possession of 14th in lifetime appearances. On the opposite end of the spectrum Adam Smith made his debut for the club – not our most impressive team performance to lay before a new prospect – and here’s hoping he sees beyond the result and continues to turn out for us in the future.
Vinny continued his march up the lifetime overs charts with his seven in this game taking him rapidly past Graham Davenport into sole possession of 20th with David Aldwinckle well within his compass within a couple of games, although thereafter things start to spread out somewhat.
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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: Having taken his first catch last week, Nat took his first ever wicket for the Badgers this week, and enjoyed it so much that he repeated the dose three balls later. Wickets were hard to come by, with only Billy joining him on the day, scattering three catches amongst the 29 dot balls that he sent down in his six overs, and snaring both of the chances off Nat to boot.
Darrell passed Foxy into ninth place on the lifetime catches list, with the two that he took in this game taking him to 80 total, three behind Greggy in eighth and six behind Jake, who he only gained on by one. Halfway through his first spell of four overs Vinny tied Pete Legge in 21st place on the overs bowled slate, passing him before he was finished for the day and finishing up just nine balls shy of Graham Davenport in 20th spot.
This was only the second ever twelve per side game that the Badgers have played and thus the one ball nought that Mark and Danny registered for the last wicket was both the second best and the worst eleventh 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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: Jake somehow contrived to get out on 49 again, making him the only Badger to have finished an innings on that score three times for the club. Since I do not have the spare time to update it at the moment, you will have to settle for the table on that subject in last year’s Putney report for details on Badgers who have scores of 49 and/or 50 to their name.
Nat became the first Badger, best as I can tell after considerable spelunking in the database and the old scorebooks, to take their first ever catch for the club off of their father’s bowling. For the record I investigated all of the following definite offspring and parent combinations:
| Parent | Offspring | First catch off | Comments |
| James Chignell | Richard | Martin Walker | never played together |
| Vinny Cibardo | Brad | no catches to his name | |
| Graham Davenport | Barry | Alan Wilkes | |
| Graham Davenport | Neil | Mark Gordon | |
| Rakesh Dawar | Sahil | Alan Tickner | |
| Ian Estall | Callum | his own bowling | Ian has never bowled (for the Badgers) |
| Mark Gordon | Jake | Ben Valentine | |
| Mark Gordon | Amy | Rob Knew | |
| Roy Gordon | Mark | Dave Bowerman | Roy has never bowled for us |
| Ian Gregg | Nick | no catches to his name | |
| John Kasay | Mark | Mick Willmott | John majored as a wicket keeper and has never bowled for us |
| Glyn Lister | Edmund | neither has a catch to his name (in case I have the father and son mixed up) nor have they bowled | |
| Matt Mann | Tom | no catches to his name | |
| Keith Miller | Alan | no catches to his name | |
| Keith Miller | Mark | no catches to his name | |
| Brent Noble | Greg | Alan Tickner | |
| Bob Parker | Andy | Alan Tickner | Andy caught his first before Bob ever played for us and Bob has never bowled for us |
| Laurence Pitts | Dave | Steve Card | never played together |
| Laurence Pitts | Steve | Lee Foster | |
| Steve Pitts | Darrell | his own bowling | |
| Steve Pitts | Jacqueline | no catches to her name | |
| Alan Preston | Chris | Brian Moore | never played together |
| Alan Preston | Michael | Allan Butt | |
| Chris Preston | Jason? | no catches to his name, only initial J known for certain | |
| Pat Redding | Kyle | no catches to his name | |
| John Rourke | Jason | no catches to his name | |
| Ray Ward | Graham | David Aldwinckle | Ray did not play until long after either son’s first catch and has never bowled |
| Ray Ward | Richard | Ian Gregg | |
| Richard Ward | Daniel | his own bowling | |
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Footnotes:
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Darrell’s catch took him into a tie with Simon Fox for ninth on the list of all-time catches for the club, with 78, whilst the wicket that Rob took moved him into a tie with Pete Legge for 16th on that slate.
Having wondered to several people in advance of the game whether I would get the chance under the current ECB guidelines to nail my two hundredth stumping this season, players from both sides that I spoke to ahead of the game seemed to consider it perfectly fine for me to stand up in my normal position when appropriate and thus I was able to notch up numbers 200 and 201 before the day was done. I would like to brag about how that is more than twice as many as everybody else put together but that is a rather meaningless boast without some idea of how many games I have kept wicket in compared to said everybody else. Since we do not have that information except from 2014 onwards (and outside of the past twenty-five years or so have not even been recording it in the scorebook) then perhaps it is best to just ignore the fact and move on.