With the jet stream of doom finally moving back to a cricket-friendly position, the Battersea Badgers levelled the south-London Ashes with a comprehensive victory against the King’s Road. After a nail-biting loss in the 40-over format of the game, the Badgers knew that nothing less than a victory would do in order to keep the series alive. Yet there were to be no tears this time, as the Road’s total of 82 was too low to trouble the black and white badgering machine.
The orange caps began their innings high on confidence but this quickly drained away when it became apparent that the Tooting jungle outfield would make boundaries extremely difficult to come by. Tight bowling from the Badger attack kept the Road as helpless as a trussed-up dungeon gimp and, when the shackles were briefly removed, Mackrell appeared to tighten the straps once again. A devastating three wickets in four balls ripped the heart out of the middle order and left them prostrate and submissive with just 82/7 from 20 overs.
In previous seasons, a small chase of 83 could have set nerves jangling, but Marchant strode to the crease determined to complete the job in ruthless fashion. Not only did he take with him ‘The Goose’ as his bat of choice, but also ‘The Cloke’ as his opening partner extraordinaire. The two men faced none of the problems of the King’s Road batsmen and, by taking aerial route, were able to avoid the long grass that had slowed the ball earlier in the day. Late wickets forced a few more Badgers to put their pads on and some dodgy scoring forced Shone to hit the winnings runs twice but there were no twists in this straightforward victory.