Whilst most people in the UK were wondering “Is Meghan Markle’s father going to walk her down the aisle next weekend?”, the Badgers were pondering a much trickier conundrum: “What to provide for tea?”. Tip: If any readers are ever put in this difficult position, 2 boxes of 20 McChicken Nuggets is the answer. Whilst people may initially react to your offering with cries of “Oh my God, that is disgusting”, they are actually trying to put other Badgers off to improve their personal nugget: Badger ratios.
In addition to solving our mastication woes, Captain Cloke had the additional challenge of deciding whether to bat or bowl. Dundonald Recreation ground is a decent batting track (at least, out of all the grounds the Badgers can afford to play on). Heavy overnight rain had dampened the surface somewhat. With the sunshine forecast to dry out the pitch, Clokey put us into the field.
Hamblin and Blake, both generously rated as “Right Medium Fast” in the oppo’s scorebook, opened up the bowling and set about trying to disrupt the Corinthian opening duo. The first victim of this battle was Laurence, our wicket keeper. An awkward impact from one of Blake’s deliveries dislocated one of his fingers. With much reluctant, Laurence relinquished the gloves to Ben Cornish. No one likes Australians behind the stumps but the Badgers had little other choice given that state of Laurence's hand.
There was plenty of ball movement through the air which was enjoyed by all the Badger seam bowlers and Ben behind the stumps. However, the Corinthian batting was solid and, whilst wickets were taken, their batsmen, thanks to a strong middle order partnership, largely got the better of the Badgers and ended up with 233 runs.
40 chicken nuggets later, the Badgers began their response to the Corinthian innings. Despite strong batting performances from Cloke (56) and Cornish (41), the Badgers could never match the Corinthian’s run rate. The Dundonald boundary proved elusive for the batsmen. When the ‘hit and run’ protocol was instigated by the tail-enders, it was too late (although it was surprising how many runs could be achieved with hit and run … especially if one wore Aero pads).
Lessons learned: Tighter fielding required, fewer chicken nuggets and more boundaries.