A five-wicket haul from Pete Warman, punctuated by an astonishing four-wicket maiden, blew away the King’s Road in the first Twenty-Twenty of the season. Having bowled only six T20 overs during his previous ten years of Badgerdom, Warman made up for lost time, smashing his wrecking ball through the Tango Brigade and taking names along the way.
On a tricky Fishponds wicket, the Badger top order set about compiling a competitive total through the batting of Hamblin, Cornish and Mackrell. This fearsome threesome, combining the skill of Messi, Suarez and Neymar, the power of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Van Damme and the sheer cuddliness of Alvin, Simon and Theodore, carved up the bowling to the great delight of the crowd.
A final score of 157/5 always looked like it might be too much for the Kings of Carrotsville and so it proved, with Warman assuming the role of peeler-in-chief. With the Road already behind the rate, the Welsh Wizard shimmied in for an over of bowling that will go down in Badger folklore. Dot, wicket, wicket, dot, wicket, wicket. Bassey. Jones. Bale. Llywelyn. Henson. Zeta-Jones. Add Warman’s name to the list.
After this onslaught, the match was never in doubt. King’s Road stumbled on to 99/9 from their 20 overs—a loss by 57 runs. The Badgers go 1–0 in the South London Ashes (which we didn’t care about when we didn’t win it last season but now we do).
Next up—the Supertest!