With the rope out and the inner circle laid at the Hollies, the stage is set for Dooz to surely win a game of heads and tails? But no, YET ANOTHER toss lost and Battersea elect to bat first! To which the plough erupted with joy and a little bit of laughter at our dear captain.

CRS and Ritik open the bowling, with CRS taking the first over (shock)….

Believe it or not, it didn’t take CRS very long to get the ball talking. The opener for Battersea snicks off to Suri, who gave the Plough 1’s his very best Tyson Fury imitation, punching the ball up in the air towards McGurn, who took a brilliant diving grab at 1st slip ish.

Ritik also didn’t take long to join the act. Bowling demon pace and hitting some good hard lengths, he claims the wicket of Battersea’s number 3.

The Ironsides double lefty 3rd wicket partnership was resilient and strong, managing to put on a hard fought 30 runs in 7 overs. It seemed the opposition had steadied the ship.

Until CRS said no more, and decided to bowl one of the best balls I have ever witnessed from the covers. I have no idea what the ball did in the air or off the pitch. But the way the ball clipped the bails was something I won’t forget in a hurry. CRS’ sixth over went Wicket, Wicket, dot, single, single, Wicket. That has to be some kind of ploughmans record?

Needless to say, CRS finished with figures of 9 over, 6 wickets for 38 runs. A tremendous spell. But Anyway, Enough of CRS for a bit.

Ritik bowled 5 strong overs, making way for the ever reliable SLA (slow left arm) of Dom Scott. It only took Dom a couple of balls to claim his first victim, Battersea’s number 4.

Another shout out to Suri and McGurn behind the stumps for this wicket. The batsman spooned the ball miles up in the air. Both Sean and Suri are looking around at eachother. Who is going to take the catch? Sean looks at Suri, Suri tries to look at Sean, but Suri can’t see anything out of the visor of his helmet. The ball is descending down rapidly at this point. So Suri whips his helmet off, throws it at Sean, and takes the catch as his helmet rebounds off the outfield. A remarkable and pretty agile catch in the end.

Before the Ploughman 1’s knew it, Dom had cleaned up the tail, finishing with a three-for. Battersea Ironsides 2’s are bowled out for 86 in 19.5 overs.

Following the DSG teas, the second half was underway. Sean McGurn took the first ball with his partner Iskandar Eaton at the other end.

Battersea’s opening bowler, Johnson, was bowling some seriously good stuff. To the point it was almost CRS’ like. In his first 4 overs, he claimed 2 single wicket maidens, a maiden, and an over that went for only 2 runs. He’d claimed the wickets of Sean and Iskandar, and the plough thought they were in for another tough chase.

This was only to be made tougher, when Connolly was triggered LBW on 10 runs, leaving the ploughmans 32-3 off 11 overs.

Max Gumpert and Angus Osborne had their first ever batting partnership together. And we could all tell. Both trying their very best not to run each other out!

Amongst some of the dodgy running between the wickets, Max and Angus both played a blinder of an innings. They absorbed a lot of pressure, scoring 30 runs in their first 10 overs together at the crease. They then decided enough was enough, proceeding to score the next 26 runs in only 2 overs! This was helped massively by Gumpert smashing some huge drives over the top.

What proved to be the final over of the chase, Ploughmans required 8 runs to win. Angus dotted up the first 3 balls of the over. The bowler then pulled his fourth ball slightly shorter, only for Angus “Nobby” Osborne to slap the living daylights out of it. The ball rushed to the boundary at long on, and the plough now only required 4 runs to win the match. We all sat on the sidelines, wondering how Angus was going to complete the chase. The Ironsides bowler decided to throw one wide down leg side for 5 wides. No one saw that coming.

To summarise this match report, CRS bowled an insane spell, partnered excellently by Ritik. Another strong spell by the “Nintendo”Dom Scott enabled the plough to dismantle Battersea for only 86.

In the chase, Angus and Max played an extremely mature and team winning partnership. Making batting look easy on a not so easy deck.

The 1’s are placed 5 points off top of the league, and look to carry on their great form this Saturday. See you all this weekend and plough on.

Match report from James Barron