Unprecedented scenes of carnage ruled the day at Battersea Park as four members of the Hammersmith Hawks fell victim to serious injury, three requiring trips to hospital. After a day that saw more blood spilt than Josh Lee’s last visit to Shang Tsung’s island for the annual Mortal Kombat tournament, the decision was finally made to call the game off as a draw.
And yet it was not a Cloke headbutt or a Mcluskey uppercut – not even a sinister Cole badger dance – that led to such mayhem, but a series of freak accidents. Two of the opposition suffered a head collision during the warm-up, one received the ball in the face while fielding and the most unfortunate was the batsman on 93 not out who edged a full toss into his eye.
In between all the stoppages for medical attention, a high-scoring game was in progress. Dollimore, who had celebrated his birthday the previous day, opened the batting and awarded himself the present of hogging all the strike from his partner Jinks, making a handy 34 runs in the process. Useful contributions from Cloke, Morse, Shone, Cade and Dovey (who hit a 6 off his very first ball as a Badger) meant that a very healthy 241 runs were scored off 35 overs.
The Hawks hadn’t enjoyed their time in the field, or indeed their time getting ready to field, but they decided that boundary-hitting looked a lot of fun. They moved from 25/3 to 167/3 before the next wicket went down and were sitting pretty on 192/5 with 11 overs remaining when the paramedics were called to the field. The injured Hawks batsman had ruthlessly punished the wayward Badger bowling and would almost certainly have continued on to an excellent century.
As it was, the light was already fading and both teams agreed to call it a day before any more Hawks incurred the wrath of the cricketing gods. The Badgers retired to the local pub, toasted Dollimore’s birthday and watched Cade lose to Cole in a pint-downing contest.
Cole has never been defeated.
Cade has vowed revenge.
Things are warming up nicely for tour.