Saturday August 26th will go down in Ploughmans history as a day to remember for our captain Robert Cox as he claimed his three hundreth wicket for the club, sadly it will also be remembered as a day to forget as the spirit of playing cricket for enjoyment took a considerable nosedive.

After waiting thirty minutes for old Minch to turn up and play they were asked to bat and took to the field minus two umpires, after another short delay the game finally got under way. Will Barras and Coxy opened the bowling and the opposition were soon struggling, wickets fell at regular intervals and old Minch were faltering at eighty odd for five.

Their one class bat and all round nice bloke Patel turned up over an hour late, and hit the ball as well as he did when we played them earlier in the season, this time though he only lost one ball, not the four that he lost at their ground in June. He finally became part of Ploughman history when he was last man out for seventy four bowled by a coxy inswinger, the three hundreth wicket, a fantastic achievement for a bloke who joined the club as a wicket keeper.

After another fabulous tea from Dawn, Leon and I started our reply, we managed to put on forty eight for the first wicket, until I went for twenty seven, Leon carried on batting well with Rich and Chas until he was run out for a very good thirty four.

Then came the big moment in the game, Chas who was batting really well on twenty seven faced a ball which somehow dislodged a bail, whether the ball had hit the stumps or came back off of the keepers pads umpire Paul Peters couldn't decide so he gave not out. What followed was a two minute demonstration by the fielders, one particular individual lets call him "the incredible sulk" nearly had a heart attack, after much cap throwing and swearing, the decision was reversed and Chas rightly or wrongly had to go.

After that the middle order and the tail didn't hang around for to long and we were all out for one hundred and eighteen, chasing one eight five. The whole afternoon had been spoilt by a decision that one team wouldn't accept, the "incredible sulk's" behaviour was inexcusable, whatever happened to the phrase, the umpires decision is final! I would like to add that this is just my opinion and not that of Ploughmans cricket club so if any of the oppo read this, feel free to ring me to discuss.

GB.