The Six Gun Grill Garden Route Badgers are back in contention for a place in the Cricket South Africa Division 2 Twenty/20 knock-out competition. Yaseen Valli and his team, bounced back with one of their most impressive performances in a while when they defeated the unbeaten ACDC Tuskers by 6 wickets at the Recreation Ground in Oudtshoorn on Wednesday, 2 October.
On Saturday at Buffalo Park in East London, the Badgers produced a clinical performance with an 8 wicket bonus point victory against the Eastern Cape Iianyathi.
Against the Tuskers the Badgers won the toss and sent the visitors in to bat and bagged four earlywickets. (7,4 overs). A partnership of 71 runs between Kyle Nipper and Chad Laycock gave some stature to the Tuskers’ innings but the Badgers restricted the Tuskers to 153/8. Sintu Majiza (2/12 in 3 overs) was the pick of the bowlers for the home side, but he received good support from Kyle Jacobs (3/27 in 4 overs).
The Badgers got their run chase off to a solid start courtesy of a second wicket partnership of 48 between the skipper, Valli (25 from 20 balls; 5×4) and Kyle Jacobs (24 from 11 balls; 2×6, 3×4). With the departure of Valli (51.3 in the 6th over) the Badgers were confronted with a test of character. It was, however, a level-headed innings by George van Heerden (36 from 35 balls; 2×6, 1×4) and the hard-hitting Heath Richards (59 from 43 balls; 3×6, 4×4) who contributed to a match winning partnership of 91 runs for the 4th wicket which enabled the Badgers to reach the target of 156/4 from the last ball of the final over.
In the fixture against the Eastern Cape Iianyathi the Badgers after again winning the toss, sent the home side in to bat and with a clinical performance dominated the Iianyathi’s batters with only Nathan Roux (36 from 38 balls; 4×4) that offered resis-tance. Thomas Kaber (3/16 in 4 overs) was in devastating form with the ball for the visitors as they restricted the Iianyathi to 114/9 in their allotted 20 overs. The Iianyathi only managed to score eight boundary fours and one six in their innings.
Thanks to a magnificent unbeaten 105 runs partnership for the 3rd wicket between Kyle Jacobs (47 from 50 balls; 3×6, 3×4) and George van Heerden (59 from 34 balls; 4×6, 4×4) the Badgers reached the target – 115/2 – after 15,4 overs. The Badgers scored 42 runs in the last three overs to secure a bonus point victory. Two dropped catches did not help the Iianyathi’s cause.
The Badgers will now host the Northern Cape Heat at the Recreation Ground in Oudtshoorn on Wednesday (9th of October) for a must win fixture to advance to the semi-finals.
Badgers back in business
George van Heerden batting in the game against Tuskers. Photo supplied