Fresh from victory against Faire XI, the Badgers headed to their next match full of excitement - the Believers at Battersea park. Like chalk and cheese, the Faire had had a stronger batting suit, whereas Believers had historically fallen down on the batting, but provided some good bowling to face. Could the Badgers prevail, and bat for more than 33 overs this time? After his great batting innings last week, could Dolli push his claim to be the finest Badger all-rounder who isn't Robin? Would anyone be able to tell, since Pete hadn't updated the webpage?? All these questions and more were were on the minds of our plucky Badgers. Captain Dollimore had pulled in several favours to get together a team of 10, but luckily JD could play, so everyone was very happy about that.
Winning the toss, Dolli put the oppo in, to take advantage of their potentially fragile batting line up. An early wicket fell, with one opener bottom edging onto the stumps, but after that the Believers progressed steadily to 32, with Giles playing some fine attacking shots, until the scorecard tells me the flood gates opened, with 4 wickets falling for zero runs. Dollimore bowled a fine line and length to bowl three, and Maskell (earlier unfortunate to miss the edge multiple times) lured Giles into a swipe at a low full toss. The spinners continued the good work, with Rushmore taking 2-4 as the Believers were all out for 113. Only Roy really stopped the rot for them, scoring an excellent 58. Dolli took 4 in the end, deliberately avoiding his second match jug in a row.
In reply, as expected the Badgers faced some tight swing bowling, which together with a slow pitch strangled the scoring for a while, which was a bit boring, though it was a timed game so who cares. Luckily the newly svelte Jinks (42) and the newly Badgered Rushmore (31*) had a very attractive partnership to take the Badgers home.
In the end, a good win against a good bowling side - if they had scored a few more, we could have been in trouble. The answers to the questions at the top: No, it was 32.5 overs, maybe, he took 4 wickets, that is pretty good and Foordy has been busy with barbecues and no we can't, Pete still hasn't updated the website.