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1985 Season1985 was notable for a number of reasons. Following the inaugural 1984 campaign, this was the Year Without a Tour - the only one to date. The predominance of the "sporting" (or just plain unplayable) pitches of Dulwich Park and Crystal Palace led to a spate of low-scoring games and gave the bowlers plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Some long-standing fixtures first appeared this year. We experienced the first of many defeats by Surrey Antilles, PoC began his reign of terror over Merton Saints, and Nuxley and Richgas made their first appearances on the fixture list. There were five draws during the year, since the 40-over thrash had not yet become ubiquitous. Surprisingly none of them featured Phil S grimly batting out the closing overs, but they were all thrillers nonetheless. Twice in a week (The Min and Merton Saints Sundays) we managed to avoid defeat with 9 wickets down, while the CP&SB match was rained off with the RedBat score at 14-6 in pursuit of a far-fetched 167 to win. According to the scorebook Lyric Theatre had reached 85-8 chasing 86 to win when the curtain fell, and we had Merton Saints Saturdays 8 down with 10 needed to win when time ran out. RedBat's first 50s were scored during the season, with Richard Butterworth achieving this feat twice - both at Dulwich Park. Bill took the first 5-for, against Queens Park, and Giles repeated the trick in the win over South London Students. Bowlers are likely to enjoy perusing the 1985 averages, batsmen less so. The season by numbers
1985 Fixture List
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