With the never-ending dry weather, you could describe the conditions as the ‘Hollies on steroids’. A day where the variable bounce kept everyone guessing (well mainly the batsmen….).

After a few weeks of batting first, captain Leo on his inaugural 1st XI captaincy outing (after an extremely chummy long chat with their skip) decided to put the oppo (Wimbledon) in. Turned out this was a wise decision, especially how difficult it has been recently to set a score at the Hollies. Geordie, making his debut, got amongst the wickets early, with Baz claiming a sharp catch. Then Azza ‘Bucket Hands’ Haque produced an absolute stunner at deep square leg, taking a massive catch off a full toss - never in doubt….

Wimbledon’s opener and no.4 stuck around for a while, but Aman eventually produced some excellent Sunday channels to have one of them strangled down the leg side. Azza then got in on the act again with a bowled and then another catch with a caught-and-bowled to leave Wimbledon wobbling at 50-6 at drinks.

After the break, their captain rather generously decided to run himself out, despite Leo’s best efforts to give him every possible opportunity to rethink the decision. From there, we wrapped things up nicely, with Azza finishing with an excellent four wickets and three catches (day out that). Geordie took two on debut, Aman the new CRS (1-9 off 9), and Baz also helping to mop up the tail. I must also add that it was probably our best fielding performance of the season, no dropped catches and Azza certainly setting the tone at the top.

Wimbledon were all out for 61 – ‘easy’ said the ‘Plough on’ chat – oh how they were wrong….As Leo put it, ‘four runs on this pitch today is equivalent to about 10 runs,’. So, if my maths is correct, we were essentially chasing 150.

Despite that daunting mental arithmetic, we started positively. Tom and Baz smacked a couple boundaries in the opening over and all looked relatively straightforward.

Then their 15-year-old youngster came on at the other end….chaos ensued. Plough disintegrated from 9-0 to 15-4 and then to 27-5, leaving a fairly chaotic and nervous Ploughmans hut.

Enter Nicko.

With Maddie and daughter having arrived just in time for the masterclass,  Nicko decided this was no time for caution and began dispatching boundaries all over the place. It was excellent entertainment and the positive intent was exactly what was required on a pitch where there was always going to be a bowl with your name on it. A big shout out to our second highest scorer ‘byes’, who gifted us 12 runs including 8 in one over off an off spinner (?!!?), which swiftly left Wimbledon with a backstop next over (lol).

The damage was done, and when Nicko snicked one behind, only two runs were required. Tunnacliffe came in and bungled a 4 off his first bowl to secure the win. A special mention must go to Michael Ainslie, playing his last home game, somehow managed to survive the carnage at the other end to keep hanging in there in some seriously tough batting conditions.

It might not have been the most satisfying victory we’ve ever produced, but it keeps a bit of momentum going as we chase what is an outside chance of promotion. We’ll probably need a couple of other results to go our way, but you never know.
Winning  by 3pm wasn’t to everyone’s taste though, the beers clearly got to some Plough members – ‘8 deep by 9pm! Can we win slower next time please’ – who said it?

Finishing so early did at least give us plenty of time to head over and support the super twos, who were defending 103 against Alleyns. In what was probably the largest crowd to grace a div 11 game this season, the cheer XI in full voice almost saw the twos come back with the most unlikely of victories, but not quite to be. Most importantly, it was fantastic to see the club together with so many members out in force supporting each other across both teams.

Match report from George Tunnacliffe