Badgers Cricket Club – Season 2022 Match Reports
This page holds the match reports for all games played during the 2022 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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: This is the first game since Wimbledonians in 2020 where no performance was worthy of calling out in the usual format results entry, which features any bowling figures of three wickets or more and any batting of thirty or better. Not a good day all round for the Badgers.
Not much happening statistics-wise this week so I will resort to informing you that the last couple of balls of Rob’s final over saw him pass Jake into ninth place on the all-time list of runs allowed. He has bowled over a hundred overs more than Jake so his economy rate is better, but that counts for nothing on this list!? Since the pair of them are still active, and Jake originally passed Rob back in May last year, this may go back and forth until one or both of them catch Dave Tickner, who is nearly 500 runs away.
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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: Two nice round numbers were achieved in the lifetime statistics this week. In the first innings Darrell snared two catches to take him to 100, the sixth Badger to hold that many. He sits behind two other active players on the list – in Jake and Wardy – both of whom have been moving away from him during this season, and all three have a fair way to go to reach Dave Tickner in third place so will likely only be fighting amongst themselves for the next couple of seasons. Just under halfway through his innings Jake reached the 5,000 run mark for the Badgers, the sixth player in club history to score that many. He will need (at least) another season to catch Brian Moore in fifth place on the list. Not long afterwards he also passed his own single season run scoring mark from last year, albeit in three more innings, and now holds the top three highest scoring seasons in club history.
Two debutants this week in Ollie Houghton, who we have played against at Woodmansterne, and Shaun Goldfinch who had distinguished himself the week before by getting his old man out with the second ball he bowled. Both caught a catch on debut but otherwise it was a mixed afternoon for Ollie who fielded well but was one of four ducks for the visitors but a decent one for Shaun who took two wickets with his in duckers before amassing sixteen runs opening the innings.
Billy batted for the 100th time for the club, albeit not one of his most productive outings, becoming the 30th Badger to make that many trips to the crease. Further up the same list Darrell batted for the 205th time thus moving him past Barry Passmore into sole possession of twelfth on the list with the next three spots up for grabs next season.
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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 recorded his 40th fifty for the club and is now tied with Alan Tickner and Pat Redding in second place for the most scores of fifty or more (44 when you factor in their centuries too). Dad Mark is a long way ahead but has batted nearly three times as often.
Ben batted for the club for the 136th time, taking him past my father Laurence into 19th place on that list, whilst the 19 runs he recorded took him out of a tie with Barry Passmore for 24th most lifetime runs and into a tie with Greggy for 23rd.
Somewhat to my astonishment this is the 29th consecutive season that we have completed a game against these opponents on the ‘same’ weekend of the year (varying between 28th August and 3rd September). Given the English weather that almost beggars belief.
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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: About halfway through his innings Jake passed Pat Redding’s 4909 runs scored for the club and thus moved into sixth place on the all-time list. The 5,000 club is not far away but Brian Moore in fifth is another nearly 900 up the road so that may take another season or so!?
I asked Jake after the game whether this was the first time he had scored 47 in an innings but, perhaps unsurprisingly, he did not know. Turns out, it is not and he has done so twice before – back in 2015 at Horsley & Send and last season at Tadworth – adding to his interesting collection of scores clustered around the fifty mark. He has 24 scores between 47 and 57, with at least one of each, but strangely nothing between 43 and 47.
My fairly brief visit to the crease to open the batting as ineffectually as ever these days was my 500th innings for the club, the second player to bat that many times for the Badgers. At some point next season, if my knees hold up, I may manage to pass the much more effective Alan Tickner who did so 505 times and quit whilst he could still cut it, with his last innings being 74 not out at Ockley in 2007.
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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: The final over of his first spell, Bill’s fifth of the day, saw him record his second maiden of the day and thus become the eighth Badger to reach 250 lifetime maiden overs. When he came back to finish his spell at the tail end of the innings and added three wickets to his tally he passed 200 wickets for the club, only the twelfth Badger to take that many. The 47 runs he made when it came his turn to bat, in addition to being his second jug avoidance of the season, took him beyond 2,000 runs and then past Adrian Cowell in 17th place on the all-time run scoring charts. Allan Butt in 16th is more than four hundred ahead so it may take a while to close that gap.
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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: This was the 14th time we have scored as many as 223 batting first in a declaration game and only two of those fourteen have resulted in a win. None of them were lost and two were rained off. Perhaps we play so few timed games that we have lost the knack of setting a target that acts as enough of a carrot?
Amy has passed fifty seven times for the club, and somewhat strangely this is the third time she has recorded a score of 59. She and Mark have batted together four times for the sixth wicket and they have passed 50 in partnership every time with the only stand lower than the 53 in this game being the famous one at Broadbridge Heath in 2011.
Wardy joined Darrell and nine other Badgers in the 250 appearances club when he stepped onto the field for this game, although as previously discussed there is an outside chance that they were the eleventh and twelfth to reach the mark instead. The final scoring shot of Darrell’s innings took him past Darren Hanley into tenth place on the lifetime run scoring list and he is now chasing Wardy who is 160 runs ahead of him but they are both a long way behind Brent Noble in eighth.
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: Whilst I cannot be absolutely certain whether there were any such prior to 1984, which is the first season for which we currently have the full data in the data base, this is the first time in known club history where a Badger has ended up with no runs allowed whilst taking three wickets, in Dean’s case sending down just 8 balls in the process. This is unusual enough a feat that I was inspired to check 24 years’ worth of scorebooks just to be sure!?
Mark played his 450th innings for the club in this game, a list on which he is already in third place, 48 behind yours truly, whereas Darrell’s injury curtailed visit to the crease was his 200th, the 13th Badger to bat that many times.
This was Jake’s 185th game for the club, which leaves him in a tie with Windy for 17th place on the all-time appearances slate, whilst Ben made his 161st which takes him into 21st place (barring the question marks over Dave Bowerman).
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: Mark notched up a fifty in just 20 balls, which may well be some sort of record and is certainly the best by a Badger that I have recorded since the point in 2013 from which we have been recording the detailed scorecards. His innings also featured six sixes, which feels like it ought to be a record too, but a quick bit of research suggests that Bill did it at Leigh in 2019. There are seven other instances of six or more sixes in an innings since 2008, which is as far back as such data is complete in the Badgers database, but all are for scores of 79 or more so are less likely to have six sixes in the first 50. Investigating this has led me to consider an improvement to the scorecard checker program to add fours and sixes to the innings notes associated with milestones but how soon I will get around to implementing that is unknown since I still have the Oxted game to sort out and I would like to get the Friday game on Tour processed too, even though it doesn’t count towards the averages.
Halfway through his innings Darrell passed David Aldwinckle into 11th place on the all-time run scoring list with next man up Darren Hanley comfortably in his sights just 25 more runs ahead.
Whilst getting a bit of tap in his last over from the home team’s soon to retire opening bat, Vinny passed Steve Card into 13th place on the all-time runs allowed list. He has quite a way to go to match Foxy in 12th.
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: Darrell and Jake became the first ever Badgers to score a century in the same innings whilst breaking the longest standing partnership record, dating back to 1970, amassing an unbroken 182 for the fourth wicket which is also the third best for any wicket. Jake became the fifth Badger to score four or more hundreds – tied with Darren Hanley and behind only Chris Morgan (6) and the leading pair of his father Mark and Pat Redding (8) – whilst Darrell is the tenth Badger to have scored more than one ton. Fairly early in his innings Darrell passed Chris Morgan into 13th place on the lifetime run scoring slate and before the innings was complete he had also passed Foxy into 12th and 3000 lifetime runs, ending just 14 behind David Aldwinckle in 11th.
The eventual 260 total was also tied for the second highest in club history, behind only the 270 we recorded against Tadworth barely more than a month ago.
Billy has bowled in 123 innings that counted towards the averages for a grand total of 816.2 overs and his spell in this game was the worst ever economy rate in all of that time. He went for 62 from seven overs, albeit that he took three wickets so by the strange mathematics of cricket they are a long way from being his worst figures. To be fair I should explain that he was not bowling normally, due to a combination of the game situation and a hamstring niggle, so buying those three wickets was worth the loss of the runs.
With the final ball of his spell Rob passed Alan Wilkes into tenth place on the all-time list of runs allowed, on which he and Jake are now almost neck and neck (just six runs separate them) but with a long way to go to catch Dave Tickner in eighth.
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: Billy became the fourth Badger to be dismissed for 49 at least twice, having previously done so against Beddington in 2016. Justin Ducker, who played against us for Oxted two weeks ago, Jake and Dan Ward are the others who have achieved the feat, with Jake having done so three times. More details on those scoring 49 or 50 can be found in the Statistical Sett.
I noticed a slight oddity when reviewing the scorecard for this game, in that the stands for wickets eight, nine and ten were the three highest of our innings which of course led me to wonder how rare an occurrence that was. I only have the information going back to the start of the 1984 season in the database currently, but over that span there have only been two other occasions where wickets eight, nine and ten have recorded the highest partnerships – the last game of 2012 at Merrow and the game at Leigh in 2019 – with the further oddity that the eighth wicket partnership was the lowest of the three in all three instances. There have been six other instances where the ninth and tenth wicket stands were the best of the innings, so both are quite rare feats but not unheard of.
Darrell played his 250th game for the club, making him more than likely only the tenth Badger to have appeared that many times. The doubt arises from not knowing the number of 1981 matches that Richard Kemp played in but did not bat – my best guess for that figure, based on various extrapolations from other season’s data, is two which would mean that he only played 249 times. By the time Darrell draws alongside Mick Willmott in ninth, in about a season’s time, it will be impossible for Richard to have played in that many games (since he batted seven times and there were 23 games played in 1981) so he will definitely have passed him by then 😊
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 fourth century opening stand of the season was the first ever between Darrell and Jake, unsurprising given that they have only opened together once before as the latter only occasionally opens the batting (this was just the eleventh time out of 161 innings, although it is noticeable that the last four occasions have all resulted in a not out). Just to be clear, it was not their first 100 partnership or the highest – their best is a 155 for the second wicket and they have also shared a 106 for the fourth – just their first opening the battting. The 131 they put on is the eleventh highest in club history for that wicket and the fourth highest unbeaten opening partnership.
Josh Hepburn, the son of a friend of Ian Estall’s who plays at Banstead, kindly made his debut for the Badgers in order to ensure that we fielded a full eleven. He bowled two very tidy spells in the heat and would probably have had his first wicket for the club if there had been anybody athletic fielding in the gully at the start of the seventh over of the innings, his first. Sadly for Josh that position was occupied by me and the ball went speeding past my right ankle.
A third of the way into his innings Jake passed Brent Noble for lifetime runs scored for the club, in just three quarters of the number of innings (it was a different game back in Brent’s day) leaving him in seventh place on that list. Pat Redding is just under 250 runs ahead in sixth and with the way Jake is going this season that might be achievable before the year is out. Darrell’s fifty was the thirteenth time he has passed the half century for the club which takes him out of a tie with Wardy for twelfth place on that list.
The first of the two maidens that Rob bowled took him out of a tie with Steve Card into sole possession of ninth place on that slate, but since it is Bill next up and Alan Wilkes in seventh is some 75 ahead it may take him a number of years to move up further.
There is no scorecard for this game as yet, because I didn’t play and have been unable to decipher the scorebook data
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: This is the second highest score ever recorded against the Badgers, behind only the 308 by Wallington in 2013.
The full extras details have not always been recorded in the database and thus I cannot tell you where 49 total extras stands in the all-time pantheon, but I can say that it is not a record because the data I do have includes a 59 against Dormansland in 2019.
Given the absence of all bar one of the active players with more than 100 games for the club, with the exception being the skipper, this may be the least ‘capped’ side the club have fielded in some considerable time. However, working that out for definite is not straightforward so that one will go on the back burner for 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 no chance anything will be now
Statistical Notes: Mark carried his batting form from last week over into this game and he and I were able to add 108 for the seventh wicket to record both the second highest ever stand for that wicket and the first time in club history that century partnerships have been made in five consecutive games. For those that have been following along over the previous few weeks that ‘five’ might give pause, and it should because I have completely missed a very simple fact during that period whilst obsessing on the opening partnerships. Since Goldie and Jake added 105 for the fourth wicket at Hook & Southborough my mention of a previous occasion where we saw three consecutive one hundred partnerships was a week late.
Having noted in the Hook & Southborough report that Jake had moved past Mark in the lifetime batting averages I should also report that the runs Mark has scored over the past two weeks and a relative dry spell for Jake have reversed that position and thus the father is currently top dog by the small matter of .18 of a run!?
It is extremely unusual for the Badgers to bowl seven different players and for each of them to get at least one wicket. In fact, dating back to 1984, which is currently the earliest season for which I have full data, it had only happened once prior to two weeks ago – against Reigate Cavaliers in 1994 – but we did it against Ockley, where I completely failed to take note, and we repeated the feat in this game.
With his third and final wicket of the afternoon Jake passed Steve Card into ninth place on the all-time wicket takers list for the club with 202. Darrell is more than fifty ahead of him, and Greggy another thirty beyond that, so no prospect of gaining any more places in the short term. His final over, which featured four singles, also saw him move past Alan Wilkes into ninth place on the runs allowed slate, ending two in front on 3,857. Dave Tickner is next up the road but another 550 away, so again no immediate changes in the offing. With the first scoring shot against him Vinny went past John Rourke into 14th place in runs allowed, finishing up just 60 behind Steve Card in the next slot.
Bill’s brief cameo at the end of our innings saw him jump past Andy Parker into 18th place on the lifetime runs scored list, the actual leap-frog moment coming courtesy of a six. He finished the day on 1,888 so the 2,000 may also be within his compass before the season is out, which would leave him a handful shy of Adrian Cowell in 17th place.
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 skipper made his first ton in nearly five years, beating his previous best of 124 against the the same opposition in 2013, tying the fifth highest score in club history and along the way tying Pat Redding for most lifetime hundreds with eight. Prior to this innings Mark had opened 25 times, taking first strike for only seven of them, but half of his tons have come opening the batting now.
Our final total of 270 was the highest score ever by some ten runs, bettering the 260 made against Streatham & Marlborough in 2005, also in a 40 over limited overs game. Mark and Ian amassed the sixth best opening partnership, nestling between two from 1980, and also registered a first for the club by recording a century opening stand for the third week running. There was one previous occasion in club history, back in 2008, where we recorded three consecutive century partnerships for any wicket, with all three featuring Pat Redding. He shared a third wicket stand of 152 with Foxy against East Horsley, a fifth wicket of 141 with Mark at Tadworth a week later and then a fourth wicket 116 with Mark again two weeks later in our next game against Morden Parish.
Jon Stokes had his best day with the bat for the club, almost doubling his previous best of 16 in the game against Christchurch last September. Despite having been playing cricket for barely more than a year he now has a better highest score than such Badgers luminaries as Alan Preston, John Moffatt, John Bailey, Dave Bowerman, Chris Preston, Mick Willmott, my old man Laurence and James Chignell. Keep at it Jonnie, those sessions in the nets with Amy are obviously paying off!?
Jake played in his 179th game for the club and thus passes my old man into 18th place on the all-time list of appearances in matches that counted towards the averages. He will probably move up another slot before the season is out but thereafter things string out a little so progress will be slower.
Bill, after a couple of failed attempts chasing back from mid-wicket whilst Daniel was bowling, took a much simpler catch in the same position to help Dean claim the fifth wicket of the innings and thus recorded his 50th catch for the club, becoming the 15th Badger to snare that many. He ended up on 51 after snapping up another in the covers as the game wound towards a close.
This was definitively my 600th game that counted towards the averages for the club, a list which I was already heading. I probably reached the milestone at least a couple of weeks ago but we will never know for sure (unless the 1981 scorebook turns up). Despite being so many games into my Badgers’ participation this game was the first time I have ever opened the bowling outside of a tour game.
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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: This was Dean’s best score for the club, bettering the unbeaten 44 that he made in winning the game at Woodmansterne last June and his first fifty for us. May there be many more to come.
You wait wait nearly seven years for a century opening stand and then two come along at once. Dean and Billy were parted the moment the 100 came up and therefore they are now tied for 23rd best opening partnership in club history. Some amongst us will already know that this is not the first time that back-to-back opening partnerships have happened in Badgers history – I am sure that Wardy among others will remember early June 2003 when he sat with his pads on for two consecutive weeks whilst first Pat Redding and Alan Tickner racked up a record undefeated 200 stand at Stoke D'Abernon before Foxy and I amassed another unbroken 145 at NPL the following week.
Darrell made his 248th appearance for the club, in games that counted towards the averages, and thus may have passed Richard Kemp into 10th place on the list of lifetime games played for the club. An explanation of that ‘may’ can be found in the report from the first game of the season at Beechwood in relation to Wardy and Barry Passmore, both of whom Darrell has moved past in the interim. My best guess at Kempy’s games played in 1981 has him missing one or maybe two appearances, so Darrell will be beyond any likely total figure well before the season is out.
By the end of his first over on returning to action for the first time this season (welcome back Vin) Vinny passed Dave Bowerman into fifteenth place on the lifetime runs allowed chart. By the time he had finished his spell he was only six runs shy of Johnny Rourke in 14th and with the next two spots in comfortable range. Thereafter it gets tougher moving up, especially since four of the remaining places above him are occupied by other active players in the shapes of Mark, Darrell, Jake and Rob.
Early on in his innings Billy passed Pete Legge into 19th place on the all-time runs scored slate and finished his innings 33 shy of Andy Parker in 18th.
Mark made his 445th visit to the crease for the Badgers, moving him out of a tie with Dave Tickner into third place on the lifetime list of innings. Only yours truly and Alan Tickner lie ahead of him and no doubt he will catch and pass both of us before he is done.
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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: Ian and Calum (a last minute call up who had only arrived at the eleventh hour, also known as halfway through our bowling stint) amassed an opening partnership of 114, which is the 16th highest in club history for the first wicket, the first such between the openers since Matt Smith and Billy at Ripley in 2015 and the first ever between parent and offspring for any wicket.
The wicket that Jake took during his spell took him to 209 lifetime wickets for the club and past Alan Wilkes into tenth place on the all-time list.
My caught behind in this game, courtesy of a looping top edge over my head rather than the sort of nick off that I all too readily shell, was my 250th wicket keeper catch for the club. I would like to be able to tell you what a poor ratio of catches per game kept that represents but that information is simply not available since who kept wicket has only been tracked for the past thirty years or so and the information in the database only goes back to the start of the 2011 season.
The 21 runs credited to wides, from 16 wide balls, is a long way from a record, even amongst the data I do have recorded (like who kept wicket, the tracking of detailed extras and who bowled the wides are relatively recent additions to the database, and in the case of individual extras only fully recorded since 2008) with the highest score recorded by wides being 30 from 18 wide balls in our 2019 visit to Dormansland which also happens to have featured the highest ever score recorded by total extras in a Badgers innings.
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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 and Goldie put on the first century partnership of the season, for the fourth wicket, and the 105 they reached is the 14th highest stand all-time for that wicket.
An interesting ‘hidden’ landmark this week as Jake moved past his old man in the lifetime batting averages, having been hovering just behind him since recording his 155 at Thames Ditton. His average sits at 37.2 following his unbeaten 81 in this game, still a way behind the ‘big four’ of Pat Redding, David Aldwinckle, Darren Hanley and Chris Morgan who all averaged over 40 across ten seasons or more (quite a lot more than 40 in Pat’s case) whereas Mark stayed on 36.85 since he did not bat. Obviously this can move in both directions for either of them but it is much more difficult for Mark to move his consistently because of the sheer number of innings he has to his name (a problem that besets me too in trying to recapture a much less impressive average and position in the list from my own son). Watch this space to see how things develop over the season and over the seasons.
Jake’s two catches against one by Wardy took the former past the latter into sole possession of fourth place although Graham did have a chance (literally) to keep things tied but a sprawling attempt at a second grab on the day just eluded his grasp despite rolling around on the back of his neck!?
Ian and Goldie both bowled for the first time in their brief Badgers’ ‘careers’ and acquitted themselves admirably on the day.
We last played Hook & Southborough back on 6th July 1996, a gap of 9,458 days, but that isn’t even the longest such hiatus this season. There was something else to focus on after the Thames Ditton game but it turns out that that was the second longest gap between fixtures in club history at 15,317 days whilst the longest ever was when we played Old Whitgiftians in 2016 after a break of 16,780 days (nearly 46 years). Last weekend’s gap is only the eighth longest break in club history, with Newdigate, Beddington, North Holmwood, Bagshot and Wallington Old Foresters all having seen longer. For the record, the shortest ever gap was in July 1959 when we played Montrose on two consecutive Saturdays.
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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: Having set everything up last week, Jake fell shy of tying the record for most consecutive fifties, and given the number that he batted and the low score recorded by the opposition might have struggled to reach fifty even had he stayed in. Nonetheless an impressive run of scores and he does get the minor compensations of both joining Alan Wilkes in tenth place on the lifetime wicket takers list with 208 and tying Wardy for fourth on 104 catches, courtesy of the two of each he recorded. Steve Card is not very far ahead in the wickets column and then Jake has Darrell between him and Greggy, who is just shy of 300 whilst he and Wardy need to snaffle another 46 more catches to tie Dave Tickner in third on that list.
Mark’s first over of the innings saw him record a wicket maiden and thus become the third Badger all-time to reach the 500 maidens plateau. As with the lifetime wickets taken (see the report for Ham for full details of that) he is (a long way) behind Brian Moore and Alan Tickner on the maidens slate and unlikely ever to reach the numbers they posted (1066 and 926 respectively).
Rob played his 161st game for the club, which probably puts him in 20th place on the all-time list. As ever the doubt arises because of the missing scorebook for 1981 but since I explained the full scenario after the Ham & Petersham game last year, I will simply point you at the relevant paragraph in that report and you can choose to read it or not.
This is the 16th time in club history (of 1140 games played) that we have squeaked home with one wicket to spare, with the most recent prior to Sunday being the visit to Ewell in 2018, and Mark has featured as the non-number eleven batsman in three of the last four such occasions.
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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 recorded his third fifty on the trot (and no Jake, the 150 does not count as three consecutive 50s to make it five in a row) and the inevitable questions arose about whether that has ever been done before. Whilst that is not the easiest question to answer I have been sharpening up my SQL-fu and can confirm that not only is it not a record but it is not as rare a feat as I for one would have anticipated. Even if you restrict the list to fifties or more made in consecutive matches there have been two occasions, courtesy of Darren Hanley and Pat Redding, where four have been recorded, and five others of three, including by Jake himself:
| Player | Scores | When | Previous | Next |
| Darren Hanley | 93*, 58, 104* and 108* | Sep 1993-Apr 1994 | 41 | 3 |
| Pat Redding | 65, 99, 85 and 63* | Jun-Jul 2008 | 42 | DNB or 6* |
| Andy Ducker | 50, 52* and 54 | Sep 1991 | 4 | 20 |
| Mark Gordon | 54, 89 and 58 | Jul 1995 | 20 | 12 |
| David Aldwinckle | 92*, 94 and 107* | May-Jun 1996 | 28 | 18 |
| Pat Redding | 51, 95 and 80* | Jul-Aug 2003 | 39 | 8 |
| Jake Gordon | 77*, 62 and 50 | Sep 2017 | 29 | 20 |
| Jake Gordon | 155, 60 and 54 | May 2022 | 15 | 23 |
The DNBs in the tables above and below indicate that either the next or previous innings adjacent to the listed scores was no innings at all, and whilst that has no impact on the above list, where arguably it is irrelevant either way, on the list of fifties in consecutive innings by the player concerned, it does either hide or reveal an additional innings or two in a couple of cases:
| Player | Scores | When | Previous | Next |
| Brian Moore | 72, 64* and 65* | Jun-Jul 1963 | 36 | 4 |
| Chris Morgan | 69, 56 and 84 | Jun-Aug 1986 | 45 | 37 |
| Darren Hanley | 68, 59 and 76 | Sep 1998-May 1999 | 27 | 7 |
| David Aldwinckle | 60*, 75 and 119* | Jun 1999-Aug 1999 | 13, 69* or DNB | 47 |
| David Aldwinckle | 56*, 60 and 61* | Aug 2000-Jun 2001 | 13 | 9 |
| Alan Tickner | 59, 64* and 82* | May-Jun 2003 | 28 | DNB or 45 |
| Pat Redding | 78*, 62* and 73 | Aug-Sep 2007 | 25, 67, 57 or DNB | DNB or 2 |
| Billy Jenkins | 58 ret., 52 and 59 | Jun-Aug 2019 | 11 or DNB | 22* |
I could change the table above to be consecutive games batted but then I would need to revisit the original list that I worked from because I did not ignore did not bats when generating that information so there may be other examples that have not been surfaced.
We welcomed two debutants in this match, with Alvin Narain of Woodmansterne helping to make up the numbers to save us from fielding ten and with Jon Stokes’ brother Matt turning up for his second game, with the first having been the washout at Hampton Wick at the tail end of last season, which therefore made this his actual debut.
The innings was Jake’s 156th for the club, which takes him past Mick Willmott into 16th place on the all-time list, whilst two overs into his first spell Billy passed Foxy into 15th place on the list of overs bowled for the club. He has a way to go to catch Dave Bowerman in 14th.
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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: When Mark castled the home opening bat in the final over of his first spell he recorded his 500th wicket for the Badgers, a list in which he is already in third place all-time and on which he stands very little chance of catching the leading pair, who despite Mark adding number 501 in his second spell are still 441 and 464 ahead of him. To be fair both Alan Tickner and top dog Brian Moore bowled a lot more overs than Mark has done, and probably will in his lifetime given the shift to limited overs cricket, but equally both have far better strike rates. Hopefully Mark will take many more for us, irrespective of the impregnability of the position of the top two in the list.
This was Jake’s 39th score of 50 or more in 155 innings which lifted his ratio to better than 25%. Only three Badgers are above him in that regard – Darren Hanley (27.1%), David Aldwinckle (27.3%) and the remarkable Pat Redding (36.7%) – but at the rate he’s going he may well move past at least two of them, if not all three.
Darrell joined Wardy on 243 games played for the club, tied for either eleventh or twelfth place on that list (see the discussion on the subject in the notes for the Beechwood game two weeks ago for more detail on their standing in relation to Barry Passmore and Richard Kemp).
View the detailed scorecard of this game
This was our first ever visit to Giggs Hill Green to play Thames Ditton, with the only previous fixture between the two clubs taking place in late May of 1980 at Rose Hill. Nobody from either side played in both that game and in this one – I did play that weekend, but only in the Bank Holiday Monday game against Old Walcountians – so there is no one available to tell us whether it was as dank and cold that day but I would be prepared to bet that is was not. Nonetheless a game of cricket was played without interruption, so we can be grateful for that, and despite the weather it turned out to be a cracker.
The home side won the toss, elected to bat, and the opening pair were soon putting the visiting bowlers under pressure, with eight boundaries hit in the first eight overs, six of them by home skipper Dixon. However, Bill Jenkins curtailed his progress courtesy of a cracking low catch by Ian Estall at slip and that reined the scoring rate in for a few overs at least. This was to turn out to be one of our sloppier bowling and especially fielding performances, with 35 extras recorded, including eighteen wides, and seven or eight chances missed – a sharp stumping chance, a caught behind standing up, a diving effort in the gully, three massive skiers in the area of deep mid on and a hard hit shot straight to deep square leg all went begging – whilst numbers two and three continued on their merry way, amassing a second wicket partnership of 177 before Jonny Annable tamely poked a Mark Gordon back of a length delivery to Ian again, this time at shortish extra cover, to end his contribution just four shy of three figures. The innings closed eleven balls later on a total of 223 for just two wickets down, which felt like a fairly imposing total.
Despite both Darrell Pitts and Mark Goldfinch hitting impressive cut shots for four off the left arm quick bowler from one end, both struggled to score freely, especially against the veteran Annable at the other, who bowled his eight overs off the reel for just 28 runs. Goldie played all round a leg stump yorker from the left armer, whilst Darrell tired of hitting Annable right out of the middle along the ground straight to a fielder and varied things by doing so in the air to point. This left Jake Gordon and Ian Estall to rebuild things and ten overs into the innings the Badgers found themselves on 26 for 2 with the winning post looking very distant indeed.
In fact things took a turn for the worse with Ian being adjudged LBW from the penultimate delivery of Annable’s spell but the incoming Dan Ward got to watch Jake starting to unfurl his shots as he took a liking to both change bowlers, especially home skipper Dixon who replaced Annable and saw his first four overs clattered for 51 including four sixes. Dan had been minding his own business and farming Jake the strike and did not deserve to be called for a suicidal single off the final ball of the 24th over which saw him comfortably beaten to the striker’s end stumps by the bowler with ball in hand. His taking one for the team was much appreciated by the watching Badgers as at that point Jake had 93 runs and the pair had added 77 for the fourth wicket despite Dan having just the three singles to his name having faced less than a third of the strike during that span.
At that point the visitors were 127 for 4 with 16 overs left to score the required 97 more to win, and four overs later when Jonny Stokes had his bails trimmed it was up to 89 from 12. At that point yours truly strode to the crease, with the sole goal of feeding Jake – who was on 98 at that juncture – the strike, which the home side largely facilitated by not closing down the open spaces when I was on strike. Over the next few overs Jake moved quickly past his 100 and we were able to keep things moving along at roughly the rate required and it was the 34th over of the innings that probably decided the match. The unlucky Raveendran watched helplessly as Jake hit a massive skier, only for deep long off to shell the chance, and another one two balls later, better hit but nonetheless catchable, to long on, with the home skipper adding insult to injury for his bowler by deflecting the ball over the boundary for Jake’s fifth and final six.
Two overs later the home side reintroduced the left arm quick into the attack, despite the light being fairly grim, and I have to say that I did not see either of the balls he bowled to me, although somehow managing to scrape a single off the second of them. At this point we were scrambling everything, off the bat or no, but my luck ran out off the penultimate ball of the 37th over when I played all around a straight one from Park, who had been wheeling away for seven of his reasonably economical overs by that point, ending the sixth wicket stand at 64 from 53 balls. This brought Mark to the crease to fulfil the role of feeder of singles largely filled by Ian, Dan and I to that point, and the following over was to prove the decisive one.
The ‘wise’ heads on the boundary at this point proclaimed that there was a potential advantage to us from the quick bowler being on, because the slightest bit of bat was going to send the ball to the boundary with the fielders struggling in the gloaming probably more than the batsmen, and those words were to prove prophetic as Jake broke a Badgers record for the individual score in an innings with a snick past stumps and keeper for one four before a more authentic steer to the third man boundary for another. Three more off the next ball and a single from the skipper saw the equation reduced to eleven from twelve balls and the scampering continued into the final over, Jake bringing up his 150 in the process, which the home skipper bravely took upon himself with his four main bowlers all bowled out. Jake snatched two from the first ball but then two weary heaves attempting to finish things in one hit resulted in him losing his castle and Bill heading to the wicket with three needed from three.
More ‘sage’ musings from the sidelines had three leg byes as good enough, thinking back to the last ball win at Leatherhead a few years ago and so it was to prove, with a scrambled leg bye off the next ball and a variation via the two byes that ensued off the penultimate ball which somehow missed the wickets, possibly caromed off some part of the wicket keeper and ran far enough away towards fine leg to allow Mark and Bill to hustle through for the winning runs. A close game played in the right spirit, the right result from a Badgers’ perspective and a big thank you to our hosts.
Statistical Notes: Having come so close against Leatherhead on the same weekend last season Jake finally smashed Chris Morgan’s long standing Badgers’ highest individual score for an innings, being bowled for 155 with just three balls of the innings remaining having batted since the last ball of the sixth over whilst facing 109 balls. During that span he hit 20 fours and 5 sixes but the most impressive numbers for me were the 47 dot balls faced and especially the 12 balls he faced before getting off the mark from the thirteenth. A lesson for all of us, I suspect, although those of us arriving at the wicket in the last ten overs of the innings did not really have the luxury.
We do not often score 220 or more batting second, with only 14 other occasions on record, and this ties the highest score we have ever passed under those circumstances, matching the 223 that Malpas made in the Sunday tour game in 2013. As noted in the linked statistical notes for that game, we have never managed better in a limited overs game, and there are five losses and three draws scattered amongst the fourteen.
Rob’s second over of the innings was a maiden, one of only two that we sent down, and that took him to 200 lifetime maidens for the club, the eleventh Badger to reach that mark. He too is quite lowly ranked in the percentage of maidens to overs bowled – 19.8% compared to Darrell’s 9.1% and also slightly ahead of Mark’s 19.0%, but then maidens are much harder to come by with the way the game is played these days. Which makes Billy’s numbers all the more remarkable as his 30.4% sits comfortably in second place and only slightly adrift of the inevitable Brian Moore who turned in 31.8% of his overs bowled with no runs from the bat.
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: A welcome return to Badgers’ colours for Ian Estall, who turned out for us to help when we were short for a game eight years ago at Horsley & Send and has offered his services on a more regular basis this time around. He started out in fine style with a half century that put us in a good position to win this opening fixture, an opportunity which the rest of the batting lineup just failed to grasp.
In contrast to Ian’s second appearance, Wardy turned out for the club for the 243rd time, possibly moving him into eleventh place on the all-time list ahead of Barry Passmore. As ever the doubt comes because Barry played in the 1981 season and thus may be missing games in which he played but did not bat. My best guess, based in this instance on the number of innings and the usual relationship to games played for the person concerned – Barry did not bowl and thus generally batted in most of the games he played in – is that he actually played at least one more game, but probably only one, and that Graham is actually tied for eleventh as I type this. The next man up in tenth place, Richard Kemp, also may be missing an appearance or two, but either way if Wardy continues to play regularly this season he could pass both Barry and Richard for definite before the year is out.
Darrell included a wicket maiden amongst the seven overs that he bowled which takes his lifetime tally of maidens to 100, the 23rd Badger to reach that figure, although of the preceding 22 only Mick Willmott has a lower ratio of maidens to overs bowled.