The 27th August saw the intrepid men of the Plough trundle across London to the picturesque ground inhabited by the might of the South Harrow Sunday side.  Having, only the day before, experienced an opposition whose ranks were so over-endowed with arseholes it makes you wonder why you bother; it was an unenthusiastic demeanour with which I made my way to the changing rooms.  My mood was not improved by the obligatory toss-losing antics of skipper Feeney (all Ploughman skippers must demonstrate possession of this ability before being awarded the honour of leadership) and the prospects of opening the bowling whilst simultaneously keeping down the Stellas of the previous evening.

On to the field of battle we strode like ten shimmering gladiators and one tosser with a pigeon feather protruding from his cap (more on Yorkshire later).  The opposition batsmen had clearly been affected by our heroic appearance and were visibly quaking by this time and so, to put them at ease, Sha (who has a history of charitable acts such as the running of marathons) kindly decided to bowl the biggest load of old crap seen since the sport's invention.  This altruism (44 off 3 overs, ha ha), although appreciated by the Harrow openers, left us in a somewhat vulnerable position.  For my part, an otherwise economical spell was ruined by two balls that went for a total of ten wides between them.  

When Britto entered the fray he bowled well, but ultimately fared little better than Sha and myself and at the drinks break Dinesh had already scored 79.  It was a knock of great belligerence to be fair to the young lad, who obviously had a good eye and was scoring boundaries with monotonous regularity.  However, Dinesh fell to Ronnie Taberer for 83 soon after drinks, undone by the old wide, wide, wide, wide, wide, wicket trick - a strategy sadly under-employed in the higher echelons of the sport today.  After Dinesh's departure, our tails (and feathers) were up and we set about dispatching the remaining Harrow pugilists with brio.

Yorkshire had entered the attack and it was around this time that the forces of nature began to come to our aid.  Inexplicably a small earth tremor occurred and removed Paul's bails, the umpire mistakenly believing that it was Yorkshire himself who had dealt the killer blow.  But we cared not as now we had two of them back in the hutch.

Then a passing low-flying stealth bomber distracted the no.3 and he was bowled (again Yorkshire quick to take the credit for the lad's misfortune) and when soon after, a wasp flew into the eye of the no.4 as the ball was delivered, Yorkshire again whooped with delight as he was bowled also.

At this point Harrow were understandably confused but were offered an explanation in the form of "well if I don't know which way it's going to turn, what chance have you got".  Wickets continued to tumble however, and the middle-order were removed with the help of a UFO, stampeding wilderbeast and an LBW (clearly going down leg).

Soon,Taberer who by this time had been bowling one of the most lethal spells of wide bowling this correspondent has ever seen, had got his second.  Ron was to finish with figures of 2 for 416 from three overs. 

Ultimately, the Harrow tail failed to wag and the final two batsmen were soon dismissed by Wilko.  It was only after the game that we were to learn that no.s 10 and 11 for Harrow were young boys from the local blind school who just wanted to be involved in some sort of team sport (only to have their rare day-out single-handedly ruined by one greedy Yorkshireman).

When the dust had settled Harrow had set us 190 to win and I had gleefully accepted old Flatscreen’s invitation to bat at five, happy for the chance to make amends for my earlier bowling display.  So it was with overwhelming euphoria that I watched as Britto and Basic treated us to one of the most selfish acts of batting ever perpetrated by a Ploughmans’ opening partnership.  I literally wept tears of undiluted joy as I realised that neither of them were going to get out and I had once again trekked across London with a bergen strapped to my back just to down a few pints.  Despite the fact that no less than nine of the Harrow side attempted to bowl the boys out (and at least two were bowling over-arm) nothing could penetrate our fearless heroes and the result was a thoroughly convincing 10 wicket victory.

P.S. In all seriousness, the 190 unbroken partnership by Steve and Pred was awesome stuff.  Steve in particular took the attack to the oppo, scoring heavily.  The most impressive aspect though was the team spirit shown by the guys and the running between the wickets was truly brilliant, the unity and cohesion between the batsmen served as much as the effective strokeplay in withering the Harrow side. 

The opposition’s good humour and spirit was a joy and made for a thoroughly enjoyable game.  It served to diminish the bad memories of the day before and reminded me why I play this sport, so for this I thank S.Harrow. 

Finally, congratulations to Yorkshire, who’s spell of 8 for 38 will go down as the most devastating of this and most other seasons. Things looked pretty grim before he came on to bowl but a man-of-the-match performance on a batting friendly wicket dragged us back into the game.  Well done.

S.J.F.