Sitting at home in the morning, nervously sipping my iced coffee before heading off, my phone pings with a peculiar WhatsApp message: skipper Duray Pretorius has revised the batting order. Leo Nieboer will now take 1, Max McCreery 2, and Sean McGurn is down at… 7.

7? SEVEN??? Has McGurn put a molotov cocktail through Duray’s window, or something? Has he lowkey helped to foster some right-wing military coup in Central America, and this is his punishment? Does he just not want to open with me? Very troubling.

When he turns up at the DSG, an hour on, it makes sense. The boy has absolutely cooked himself. He’s torn the arse off the night before in a particularly heinous way. He’d been playing cricket on Friday, with Jo Hockings, and things got rather out of hand afterwards. Apparently Jo smashed some 11 year old for the biggest six anyone’s ever seen, and the kid’s parents immediately just escorted him to their car, presumably to give him a tall glass of milk and a stern talking to. Hockings had left at a reasonable time; Sean… pushed on, like the true self-immolating champion he is.

McGurn’s face looks red and soft and confused, eyeballs rolling absently around his head. He lies on the floor, writhing around, telling us, over and over again, that he’s “never felt better”.

Nieboer certainly has felt better, because London Welsh are already here, warming up for a good hour, and some of them recognise me. I’ve played these blokes twice before.

“You’re the opener, yes?” a tall man asks.

I nod.

“Yes,” he smiles. “I remember you.”

It’s a chilling thing to hear. Especially because this particular man, an adroit off-spinner, got me out last time, when I was on 11 (62) in a crucial league game and single-handedly ripping the intestines out of our innings.

Out there in the middle, this time, it’s a similar situation. Plough are batting first and Nieboer and McCreery are coping fine with some tidy opening bowling, but not doing much else. With 10 overs gone, the score is 20-0, and I’ve only managed one measly f*cking run. It’s one of those days where every shot you play goes straight to a fielder, and my brain’s getting dangerously hot.

McCreery feels similar. Frustrated at the lack of headway, he spoons one to point for 10 (38), ushering in the pure spectacle that is James Barron, whose arrival to the crease brings some momentum for the Plough. By drinks, the score is 53-1 — 20 or 30 short of where we should have been, but, you know, a platform of sorts.

McGurn is umpiring, and neither of us like it.

“This is so strange,” he keeps saying.

I agree. It’s like watching your dad being forced to wait in line at the zoo or something — all that power and authority you think he has… and then there he is, powerless, neutered. Then again, what we don’t consider is that some dads like that feeling. Some dads rather enjoy the belts and ski masks and the tangerines and tight-fitting Spiderman costumes. Indeed Sean, at some strange point in his life, actually considered being an umpire, which is ridiculous, because there must be some rule out there forbidding penguins from being that attractive. Just look at Aleem Dar, for god’s sake. Imagine him at one end and Sean at the other.

Back in the middle, Nieboer barbecues himself for 22 (57). Britto and Barron put on a commanding partnership that takes Plough past 100 in the 28th over. There’s a nice ying-yang happening here: Britto blasting boundaries, Barron working clever singles. By the time they depart for 39 and 47 respectively, Harry Edmonds and Penguin Boy McGurn have the ideal platform.

Some of the hitting that follows is obscene. It’s too X-rated for me. It’s like when I was shown The Exorcist at age 10; my primitive opening batter monkey brain simply doesn’t understand it. Edmonds — a living embodiment of that Stick Cricket avatar, all long levers and no feet, just pure timing — whips a sensational one-bounce four off his pads, plus two humongous sixes.

McGurn, at the other end, adorned in his Plough baggy, casually smashes 45* (21), just hitting the ball so incredibly hard and precisely. One of his sixes flies like a low-hanging missile, smashing into the nursery. Thank God there’s no Saturday school there, I think. Would be an awful scene: children crying, cowering under tables, teachers frantically calling the police.

Before all this, Duray gets triggered first ball by Nieboer. His parents had come to watch. They leave shortly after.

Despite that unfortunate development, Plough finish on 217-5 — a commanding total.

The sun now fading, the second innings begins. Before a ball is bowled, there’s a hyena-like atmosphere amongst the boys. The umpire has a go-pro, continuing last week’s tradition of the opposition coming to the DSG and cucking themselves on camera. The other umpire has a walkie-talkie of some sort, which made me think of that time North Korea played in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the management supposedly had earpieces connected to the Politburo in Pyongyang, who would deliver State Sponsored Tactical Advice, which they probably should have abandoned after losing 7-0 to Portugal. Who is London Welsh getting their messaging from, I wonder. The leader of the Welsh? Tom Jones? Tom Glynne-Jones, maybe?

In the first over, Chris Roden-Smith strikes, nicking the bloke off with a perfect outswinger. The opener has that face of disbelief one gets when their day lasts just two balls, and now they just have to suck on it. I know it well.

Meanwhile, Britto has managed to convince the square leg umpire to convince me that Manchester City are now beating Manchester United 6-1 in the FA Cup Final. I had seen Garnacho put United ahead, but that godawful team has wracked my nerves so badly in recent times that it was entirely possible, in my mind, that they’d ship six goals in no time at all. Turns out that Kobbie Maino has in fact doubled United’s lead. My fault, I suppose, for assuming Britto was being honest, and not doing everything possible to ruin my day, which I think is his way of demonstrating affection.

At the other end, Tom Lonnen is in a gripping battle with Welsh’s No.3. Balls are beating the bat relentlessly, but no wicket arrives. Some balls get sliced in the direction of fielders, but painfully drop slightly short. It’s my first time watching the tall rhythmic polemic 750-wicket man in the flesh, and I’m dazzled by his control. It’s quick, good length, and nothing strays wide. Occasionally he drops in a pace-off delivery that folds the batter like a pretzel. Not nice at all. You would never feel completely set against this bloke. He’s so good, he might even get a game for Southbank.

The wicket does come, inevitably, Lonnen bowling the No.3, and CRS takes another, reducing Welsh to 29-3. Already the game feels almost over. Plough’s bowling is just too relentlessly on the money. There aren’t enough bad balls for London Welsh to put away and make this a contest. They’re swiping wildly, cross-batting, which against this bowling is like trying to repel a precision drone with a baseball bat.

And now it’s Duray, wearing sunglasses, and the skipper has a very serious taste for it. After making a duck, there’s a special sort of concentration written across his face now. In his first over, he bowls one that rags so sharply it beats the bat and almost goes to first slip. The next ball, the batter, his brain jangled, hits one straight at Duray.

Now there’s something else in Duray’s glare: a malevolent kind of joy. Like a mother cat goading her baby kittens to belt away, he has complete control, and it’s all across his face — the weird smile of a man who has found his own rhythm, that rumoured echo of a high white sound that most of us never hear.

By the time he finishes his eight overs on 3-20, the game really is done. Plough just need to pinch it off, take the last two wickets, then get in the shower, where we all really wanted to be, all along. Annoyingly, they keep us out there, their No.10 and No.11 demonstrating some excellent form, even driving Waqas down the ground, which feels all sorts of wrong. Thankfully, James Barron exists, which is good for many reasons — one of them being that his controlled bowling sees off the tail, finishing them on 130.

But Barron’s good form doesn’t end there. In the showers, his presence is even greater than Duray’s during that spell. When you walk in, he’s in the shower immediately opposite you, like some DSG showers St. Peter, staring you down.

As Duray put it rather accurately: “I’m captain out here; in the showers, it’s a different story.”

It’s a splendid evening. The twos have won as well, all the way up in Epsom, with George Stanley hitting 152*. They arrive in bunches, including Stanley, and McGurn and I have to withhold ourselves from simply open-mouth kissing him, right then and there.

And so much for all that bad gibberish. The 1s have now won five games in a row, and they’re just getting started. London Welsh’s 1st XI are next — and thanks to today, their big boys will hear some terrible tales from their 2nd XI pals, who return to Wales (but in London) with cuts, bruises, diminished self-esteem, humiliating go-pro footage, and the enduring image of Duray in sunglasses, his demonic smile feeling for all the world like the last thing those poor middle over champs would ever see.