The time was past with a steady diet of backyard cricket, moaning about the rain and lack of a covered wicket and chain smoking tabs in Max’s car. Eventually with 30 minutes before play was due to begin, the first member of the opposition arrived, with only 6 of them at the ground with 15 minutes before the planned start of play, Liam Gray ever a stickler for the rules took no joy in informing the Croydon skipper that the toss would have to be conceded and that Croydon would be batting first, with the pitch needing some time to dry off, a delayed start time of 13:20 was agreed upon with the game being reduced to 33 overs per side.

Ashish Paul, following up his superb bowling effort at first change against Brentford CC, was promoted to open in a move that almost paid dividends immediately, his first delivery was on the money, pitching on middle and with some late away swing missing bat and going on to hit off, the umpire unfortunately but unsurprisingly did agree however, suggesting that despite the ball swinging away from the right hander and pitching on middle, it was going to miss the leg stump, undeterred Paul pitched the second ball of the innings up and the batsman surely feeling a tinge of guilt decided that having been so fortunate to survive huge LBW shout for a platinum duck, a standard duck would do just fine, mistiming an expansive drive to the ever reliable hands of Max Gumpert at mid off, the other opener falling in almost identical fashion to the impressive Drew Withers the following over.

A couple more wickets fell to Withers over the next 12 overs with both he and Paul restricting the batsmen on what was proving to be a challenging period for the home side, Gray and Gumpert came on to bowl 1st change with the latter being unfortunate not to pick up wicket whilst only going for 17 of his 7 overs.

With only Croydon’s number 3 putting up and real resistance it was James Barron making his first team bowling debut and Greg Willis making his first team debut who did an excellent job restricting Croydon to 125 runs from their 33 overs, Barron picking up 1 wicket and Willis 2 on what would turn out to be an excellent first showing for the 1s, in what was an excellent team fielding performance the lightning fast work of Logan Cassin in the covers was once again spectacular.

After a brief intermission to dip into the skippers lucky dip of meal deals, Sean McGurn and Cassin were sent out to begin the Plough reply, Cassin hitting two effortless sixes before being fortuitously caught going for a third, McGurn and Gumpert, promoted to 3 did an excellent job of seeing of the opening bowlers, and by the time the watchful Mcgurn fell to a feather behind Ploughmans had taken the commanding position of being 68/2 with only 58 more required to win, 8 wickets in hand and over 15 overs remaining in the innings, Willis had only just joined the set Gumpert when the heavens opened, leaving the Plough stranded on 71/2, with no more play possible and only 15.2 overs being completed in the Plough innings, the match was some might say unfairly was abandoned, leaving the 1s agonising close to what could have been a promotion securing victory.

Match report produced by Jo Hockings