As well as being an important “40 point game”, for nearly all of us, it also meant a maiden trip to the historic Mitcham Cricket Green – often cited as “the oldest active cricket ground in the world”. Anticipation is high amongst the group.

Poppy has conjunctivitis, sparking pre-match chat of the possibility of directing her into the oppo huddle to inflict some form of chemical warfare on them… but obviously our better angels prevail.

And as it turns out, we in fact, would be the side first infiltrated, as upon being shown our changeroom by the old Mitcham clubman, he opens the door for us to find 3 blokes asleep in there! An array of thoughts are quickly put to rest as we're assured they are, in fact, from the opposition.

So we move on to tour the clubhouse. It’s a charming old pavilion, which very noticeably and surprisingly does NOT include a bar!

It does however have its wall adorned with a vast assortment of memorabilia from many of its high profile matches over the years. A black Kiwi test cap, programmes of the various Australian women’s team vs Surrey matches held there.

But my eye is particularly taken by the Mitcham v Australian Imperial Forces poster, featuring 20-Test Australian cricketer, twice Wallabies fly-half, and fellow former Turramurra resident JM Taylor. Jack Hobbs was also advertised, but I’m told he didn’t show up. Perhaps he also went the wrong venue, just as Suri has – he’s correctly copied the incorrect postcode from Pitchero, and is sitting a few miles away on whatsapp asking where to find us! On yer bike!

It’s certainly a unique setting, with access between clubhouse and ground restricted by the busy arterial road that runs between, and its near constant flow of traffic throughout the day. Makes us ponder if any batter has ever been timed out, stuck while waiting for a break in traffic. No doubt preferable to the story Walton had uncovered of the man once run over by a horse and carriage while walking out to bat here!

Game time approaches and stand-in skipper CRS goes looking for the captain. I introduce myself to what turns out to be Mitcham's 3rd XI captain, who tells me he's never even met the 2nd XI captain! One club, anyone? Eventually I track him down on the other side of the park and correctly call heads. The Plough will bat first!

…But not immediately though, as there’s some significant f*cking around with the big scoreboard (eventually deemed not to be working), followed by setting up the scoring iPad.

At 12:15 we are finally underway, with a new combo of Barron and Max Gumpert opening. The lads do very well to absorb sustained pressure from a sharp looking Mitcham attack, while some very good running between wickets helps to keep the score ticking over nicely.

Barron is first dismissed with the score at 30/1, which brings Angus Osborne to the crease. The openers have not only batted long enough to see some shine off the new ball, but they’ve also managed to see off the local overly-friendly strange man who had decided to sit uncomfortably next to Gus’s mum for the last 40 minutes.

Max batted excellently for 25, before chipping a ball to deep mid-wicket that he was trying to guide into the gap with sensible intentions.

This would sort of be the story of our day, with all our top 7 getting starts of sorts, before being undone by persistent good bowling, the pitch, a combo of, or themselves. Our bats all fought hard though, especially Connelly digging in to play his backbone of the innings role, before being good enough to nick to snorter.

Wickets at regular intervals sees The Plough bowled out for 131, with 8.5 overs to spare. Some decent fight and intent shown, but probably just missing that one partnership of note or converting one of our starts to a significant knock.

As for Tea, at least the watermelon was nice.

The sun is now out, so a significantly hotter afternoon session in the field awaited the Plough. We all felt our score was a bit under par, but certainly the type of score we could have a real crack at defending, as we have done before on numerous occasions.

Ritik is bowling heat and nicks off their dangerous looking opener in the 2nd over, while a few overs later CRS gleefully accepts his 2nd lbw decision in 2 weeks!

Dom and Puff shortly follow into the attack, with both striking shortly afterwards. Dom particularly is an absolute handful on a pitch we’d seen take spin all day. At the half way drinks break, they’re 4 down and actually pretty even on the worm.

We return from drinks to a tense passage of play. There’s a feeling that scoring is getting harder and the pitch is only getting more up and down as the ball gets older.

Around the 30th over Dom breaks through again, removing their 12-year-old-looking 16-year-old anchor, who batted very admirably for an 87-ball score of 23.

Aman and then Dom again strike to give Plough a real sniff at 103/7. And the Plough boys are up for it!

Some good bowling continues to cause trouble, and the runs aren’t coming easy. But annoyingly we just can’t get the edge, and Mitcham numbers 8 & 9 hold their nerve to complete the chase in 2 balls more than we faced.

Dom again looked dangerous yet reliable to stand out with the ball - taking 3/15 off his 9 overs and could have easily had more.

The Mitcham captain thanks us for a good game, emphasising the closeness of the contest by assuring me that their 10 & 11 incoming bats were absolutely rubbish, so we were probably one wicket away.

Dismayed to find out that their clubhouse has no beer bottles, We jump on a bus to Morden for a few quick beers to lick our sorrows before heading home or on to Callum's party. Max inhales a Fosters from the Polish supermarket inside the 6 minutes we were waiting for the bus.

You can't ask for more from a team than effort and fight, and our work in the field turned what could have been a one-sided afternoon into a genuinely close contest.

We Plough again next week!

Match report from Chris Roden-Smith