The Badgers are well-known for their love of stage and screen. Alongside titans of amateur dramatics in their own ranks, they share a long-suffering (but thoroughly enjoyable) history with the Thespian Thunderers - a team that was long thought to hold a monopoly on cricketing actors. That view was broken by their Tuesday opponents: the Gaieties Cricket Club who were established in 1937 and counted Nobel laureate Harold Pinter among their former captains. Sadly, none of our own thespians were around to schmooze, network or audition. Instead, the Badgers had to make do with a team of less-cultured players, all completely oblivious to the illustrious history of their opponents for the evening.
This season, the Badgers had been entered into a 4-way T20 tournament by stalwart (and notoriously technology-phobic) Dickie. On arrival at the Dulwich Sports Club, there were suggestions that “the other teams were much better than us” and “Dickie has stitched us up”. Frankly, I was just astonished that, for a man who relies on carrier pigeons and smoke signals for communications, Dickie had managed to arrange any fixtures at all this season!
The Gaieties batted first. One of their openers batted without a helmet which is universal shorthand for “I was born before the 90s” or “I am really good”. As I watched his stocky frame and dark locks dancing down the track, consistently dispatching all balls into the stratosphere, a song played in my mind…
“No one bats like Gaston, Sixes fly from Gaston, No one hits quite as high as the oppo’s Gaston”
Sensing my concern (I think I uttered “Jesus Christ” enough times for the man himself to turn his attention to our match), the square leg umpire chuckled “I’ve played a few games this season, but I haven’t played with John before. Don’t worry, they seem to be flying upwards and barely making it over the ropes”. That was true to some extent in that we did have a couple of chances to catch him. However, the ball was so hot from its re-entry into the atmosphere that we struggled to cling onto it. John eventually retired on 50 and immediately cracked open a well-deserved beer. The other opener was well taken by Rexy behind the stumps and Dulwich’s airspace was finally re-opened.
The rest of their innings proceeded in a more traditional manner and eventually, the Gaieties finished on 190.
Aware of the mammoth task ahead of them, the Badger openers Lee and Mackrell proceeded with their pre-batting rituals. Lee, running through all the latest Aero cricket protection in his head and Mackrell, sinking as many Red Bulls and jelly babies as possible (in no particular order).
They started positively and almost reached 50 before Matt Adams received a call from Aero HQ demanding that both ambassadors needed to be in the middle at the same time. Therefore, Mackrell departed and gave way to Rex who immediately sprinted through a few singles with Lee before returning to the scorer’s table to continue his duties.
Debutant Kris was next and asked Lee “What is this bowling like?”. His response was a useless “I’m not sure. I haven’t really been watching”. Maybe he should have been watching as he was clean bowled with a straight one that he tried to cover drive a couple of balls later.
Kris and Will started to build a partnership with some clean, and very correct strikes. The Badgers were beginning to believe in themselves with some even daring to dream that 190 could be chased down.
Sadly, it was not to be and, despite positive Badger batting throughout with most players striking at over 100+ SR, we succumbed 33 runs short. On a normal day, we would have been happy to set a total of 157 and we left Dulwich with bellies full of beer, covered in insect bites and grateful to Dickie for entering us into the competition.