KING'S ROAD CRICKET AND SOCIAL CLUB

Kings Road 1, Battersea Badgers 0: Road win first 2015 South London Ashes clash as Lavender finds purple patch

NEWBOY Sam Lavender sowed the seeds of an easy win over the Battersea Badgers as King’s Road took a 1­-0 lead in the South London Ashes.

The Aussie import, having been uprooted from Down Under and then from the tail to bat number four, scored 92 runs off 90 balls and took three catches behind the stumps.

It was a performance that deservedly won him man ­of ­the ­match.

Before the game started, dark clouds circled the Haydon’s Road pitch and there was drizzle in the air.

With a decidedly soft middle, the conditions were more conducive to gardening than for a cricket match.

The Battersea Badgers skipper Paul Cole won toss and lumbered The Road with the job of batting first.

Captain Matt Small then re-engineered the order, hoping it would cause minimum disruption.

James Couldrey, who had found batting form in 2014 in the middle order, was stationed as opener alongside Trinidadian wonder Lomas Persad.

Regular opener Raju Mazumder, the “Wandsworth Wall”, was at three and the green Sam Lavender was promoted to four.

Play was interrupted several times in the first hour during which club stalwarts Couldrey and Mazumder fell, both caught behind by keeper Hamblin in consecutive overs for 0 and 2 respectively.

At 9 for 2, Sam paired with Lomas, who went on to score 31, to recover and heal the innings.

There were shoots of recovery for The Road until Lomas’ dismissal, a stumping off of baby-faced Peter Cade’s left arm spin.

Lavender’s subsequent partnerships with Adam Zabel, Chris Beckett and the returning Matt Glover all bore fruit.

The Orange Caps’ innings had started slowly start in poor autumnal weather, but was blossoming as the sky cleared and the sun shone.

The batsmen made hay off the bowling of Maskell and Dollimore. They were hardly ever rooted into the crease nor did they offer many agricultural or horticultural shots.

Welshman Adam mowed into the Badgers bowling attack and scored his King’s Road personal best of 18.

However the innings of Zabel ended when a mistimed stroke was cort­in­a deep fielding position by Nick Foord.

Fresh as a daisy, Chris Beckett chipped in with 4 and Glover got a hand in the run making with 29, including five fours, before Lavender’s free-flowing runscoring was stemmed in the final over.

His score of 92 is now the highest score by an Antipodean in the South London Ashes.

King’s Road closed on 198 for 7­ off 40 overs. Whilst a healthy total 198 may have been The Road did not let the grass grow under their feet.

Andy Thorpe, often a thorn in the side against the Orange Caps in the past, was run out in the first over without facing a ball.

Keating at square leg affected the run out with Lavender, allotted as wicket keeper in the absence of regular keepers, taking the bails.

Quickly enough the Badgers were at 22 for ­4. Cloke trapped lbw to Glover and Chris Shone was bowled by a Kings Road yorker from Matt Small.

Lewis Robinson had to concentrate in the covers to catch a hard and fast delivery off the bat of keeper Hamblin.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Badgers with the bat.

Alex Morse played few dot balls and dashed between the wickets on his way to 42. Rory Thomas, who was a shrinking violet with the bat at the beginning of his stint made 35.

Nick Foord, batting at seven, made 32 runs but lost focus and gave his wicket away with a simple catch to keeper Lavender off Rossi.

The look of disappointment on Foord’s face said it all; he must have felt like a real dipstick for that error.

Pace bowling had accounted for some useful wickets at the beginning of the innings.

Captain Small then planted his spin trio of Keating, Rossi and Persad and they reaped the rewards with six wickets between them.

Keating removed number three Alex Morse, Lomas took two wickets, conceding only one run and Rossi took three.

With the fall of Foord’s wicket at 135 for 7, the Road could smell a pleasant aroma in the air, the pleasant aroma of imminent victory. Maskell was the last to fall, surprised when a sharply turning ball took his stumps.

Victory puts the King’s Road one-­nil up in the three-match South London Ashes series played over three formats.

Oscar Newlove

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