Garden Route Badgers triumph in One-Day final

CRICKET NEWS - SWD Cricket's first season under its newly adopted franchise name, the Six Gun Grill Garden Route Badgers, has bore some delightful fruit. The men from the Southern Cape yesterday defeated the AET Tuskers in a great final to claim the CSA Provincial One-Day Challenge Division 2 title.

The Division 2 final was played in Pietermaritzburg yesterday, 28 December, with the Tuskers and the Badgers qualifying for the final as the top two teams after the round-robin stage.

It was a fairly routine campaign for the Tuskers, winning five of their six matches.

However for the Badgers it was a much more topsy-turvy season as they only won three of their six games, needing a penultimate-ball win over the Eastern Cape Iinyathi in their final game to progress to the final.

However, as is so often the case, what had come before bore little meaning on the day of the final. The Tuskers were hoping to defend their 2021 title and the Badgers were looking to earn SWD Cricket their first title under the new franchise name.

Tuskers won the toss and sent the Badgers in to first, given the fact that two of the competition's top wicket-takers lay in the ranks of the men from KwaZulu Natal – Malcolm Nofal and Stefan Tait.

The Badgers' innings

This didn't sway the Badgers openers though, as Matthew Christensen and Blayde Capell put on an 80-run stand for the first wicket before Capell fell to a loose shot on 38. Christensen followed Capell to the dugout soon thereafter, as he was brilliantly trapped LBW by Nofal on 46.

Skipper Onke Nyaku and wicketkeeper Jhedli van Briesies then steadied the Badgers innings somewhat with a third-wicket 54-run partnership.

But, the loss of Briesies for 43 followed by Hanno Kotze (6) and Nyaku (26) threatened to derail the innings as they slumped from 148-2 to 162-5. This didn't phase Sean Whitehead and Pheko Moletsane and they pieced together a well-paced 58-run partnership for the sixth innings to provide some much-needed impotus in the Badgers innings.

Whitehead fell for 25 with the team's score at 220-6 and Moletsane followed suit, dismissed for 38 with the Badgers now 226-7 with only 2,4 overs left.

Keena Vieira (17*) and Jarred Jardine (7*) scored well in the last two overs, carrying the total past the 250-mark to finish on 253-7. Former SWD player Stefan Tait claimed two wickets for 48 runs in his 10 overs, while Malcolm Nofal took three for 48 in his spell of 10 overs.

Keenan Vieira fires a ball straight down the ground.

The Tuskers' run chase

Tuskers struggled to find first gear in the early overs of the innings as Basheeru-Deen Walters – who was the joint-leading wicket-taker in the competition before the final – bagged two crucial early wickets for the Badgers and left the Tuskers reeling on 16-2. But this brought Tuskers skipper Michael Erlank to the crease and alongside Yaseen Valli the experienced duo revitalised the run chase.

They weren't without luck though as Valli was dropped on 11 by Badgers keeper Van Briesies after an edge off Walters' bowling, and Erlank was dropped on 10 by Jarred Jardine who squandered a tough-but-takeable caught-and-bowled chance.

Valli brought up his half-century off 72 balls and looked set to kick on with Erlank by his side. This ultimately didn't materialise as Erlank (38) miscued a lofted drive off Jardine's bowling to Walters at mid-off. Valli (59) was also dismissed shortly thereafter, falling to an LBW from Sean Whitehead with the Tuskers in trouble again at 113-4.

Despite the ever-present figure of Tian Koekemoer who went on to score 50, the rest of the Tuskers batting order just couldn't muster enough momentum to see them over the line.

Keith Dudgeon smashed 14 off the last over, but it still wasn't enough for the defending champions and they were bowled out for 242 to hand the Garden Route Badgers their first-ever title. Walters shone with the ball for the Badgers, taking four wickts for 46 runs in 10 overs to finish as the competition's outright leading wicket-taker. Captain Nyaku also contributed with two wickets of his own.

SWD Cricket President Rudy Claassen congratulated the Badgers on their historic achievement.

"This victory is long overdue, but I would like to congratulate the coaching staff, players and the behind-the-scenes back-room staff on this performance," he said. "You played what we stood for and made us proud."

Badgers top-scorer Matthew Christensen lines up a back-foot cut.