Leo Nieboer wakes up and he’s hungover. A right bastard behind the eyes. For a while he lies there in bed, soaked, fetally curled, entombed in that kind of psychic darkness where you’re dreading whatever you think of, which is actually quite normal, on Saturday mornings like these.

Heading outside for that shaky morning cigarette, unable to even think about how he’ll get through today — knowing that it’ll have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically — he gets a text from Alex Jullienne. The Aussie opener is doing even worse than Nieboer after a night full of retching, beleaguered by a poorly-timed bout of food poisoning. He asks for his fielding position to be placed near the toilet, just in case.

“I’ll be right,” he concludes, in a very sort of laconic Ned Kelly-like Australian manner.

Inspired by such courageousness amid the looming threat of involuntary defecation while wearing whites, Nieboer gets himself to the Griffin, the skies above grey and ugly, and heads for our large spacious changing room. A good number of the 2nd XI are here nice and early, so we just sit there for a while, passing the time.

Chris Butlin, playing his first game of the season, is talking about “those red trees you get sometimes” — very annoying when in the batter’s eyeline, he’s saying. I counter that I’ve never seen a red tree, apart from maybe, like, a Sequoia, which last time I checked doesn’t tend to grow in the North Dulwich area. Nonetheless Butlin doubles down, tells me I should know more about trees, as captain.

He then moves onto his plans for tomorrow — seeing Leyton Orient at Wembley. It’s a 13:00 kick off, so he’ll need to start drinking at approximately 09:30, he reckons, otherwise he’ll be unders by the time he gets to his seat, which we all agree is about right. We meditate on the beauty of being morning drunk, which Butlin rightly points out is a headier sort of buzz, given the way it almost ambushes your circadian rhythm, gets big on you like a bouncer.

We then walk through the different kinds of morning drunk, of which there are certainly more than two. Umar Iqbal puts in a shout for airport drunk — those beers in a graveyard-like Gatwick Wetherspoons at 05:00. I counter with airplane drunk and specifically the dangers and joys of sucking down those little bottles of merlot at 35,000 feet. Butlin will be going with classic Spoons breakfast drunk tomorrow. Aman Jain very innocently asks if Spoons serve alcohol at 08:00, which draws horror from myself and Oscar Sawyer.

“Does the Pope bloody sleep on his back?” I hiss at him.

Suri Poleboina, sat in the corner, is not saying anything. He’s not happy with Nieboer’s idea to bowl first today, which reminds Nieboer that he should probably go outside and speak to the oppo and generally behave like a captain for a bit. He heads out there and sees 13 St Clements players — the extra two there because two members of the starting XI have to leave at like 17:00 for a wedding or something.

Nieboer, who has once again forgotten to bring a coin, essentially just tells their friendly skipper, Afghan, “Yeah, yous can bat,” then walks off again, sweating profusely despite doing no exercise and there being no sun whatsoever. Cakey has arrived and indeed he looks ghostlike, spectral, a real 1,000-yard stare across his face. He’s relieved to not be putting his pads on, just yet.

On the pitch, St Clements make a good start, both openers teeing off, taking advantage of a lovely batting deck. Sawyer and Ritik Jaat bowl some snorters for no reward, and the score reaches 60-0 off about 8 overs. Eventually, though, Ritik does get something for his efforts, forcing their especially violent No.2 into a loose shot, caught excellently by Plough’s latest off license recruit, Qammar Jamshaid. Next ball, he absolutely blows their No.3’s front pad off, and just like that the game has completely changed.

The other opener is still doing some damage, but no longer is the score moving along with such ferocity. Qammar comes on and delivers an excellent start — only one scoring shot off the bat in his first two overs. Their skipper, in at No.4, gets frustrated and smokes one to mid off, which Aman grabs superbly.

The next over, Aman, now at long on, is delivering a fielding drill to nobody in particular, going through the long barrier motion, all by himself, which is a level of cricket nuffy that surely warrants an advanced DBS check of some kind. Butlin shouts at him to stop that shit, get back to regulation mid off. Next ball, Aman claims an even better catch.

“Okay,” Butlin concedes, “you can do your fielding drills.”

From this point onwards, St Clements stagger and wallow in a riptide of precise bowling. The shift is so seismic it’s almost unbelievable. They go from about 90-4 at drinks to 136 all out inside 26 overs.

Aman, having completed his fielding drills to a satisfactory standard, is the star of the show, taking 4-12, including their gun batter, the nature of his dismissal — caught by Benny Cobbett at slip — being predicted, word for word, by Benny himself at drinks. And all of this despite a foot injury sustained on this very ground on the Monday during nets, which I witnessed personally, and felt like a true punch in the throat — like seeint your top racehorse collapsing on the final furlong. Similar to Wayne Rooney’s metatarsal injury before the 2006 World Cup.

Aman has played two games at the Griffin. He’s bowled 12 overs for 14 runs and taken 6 wickets, giving him an average of 2.33 and an economy of 1.17. So, yeah, all yours, Duray, I guess. Enjoy him, you f*cker.

He’s so comprehensive that Benny, at the other end, only gets two overs. Nonetheless they’re an eventful two overs. His first ball traps the batter right in front, yet nobody appeals other than Benny, who appeals so voraciously that the umpire essentially gets scaremongered into putting his finger up.

“Thanks for the support, boys,” he cries in the huddle.

Nieboer ignores him. “Let’s keep our boots on their f*cking necks here, boys,” he shouts, which gives the umpire quite a jolt.

“Jeez, it’s only a friendly, man,” he mutters. No such thing as a friendly on a Saturday, brother.

The next batter who comes out is the guy who triggered their No.3 first ball, and we all give him a rapturous ovation. We’ve got an especially funky field now. He doesn’t last long and we all get to prematurely blow our load on yet another magnificent tea, replete with beautifully spiced chicken — so good that Aman has, like, three portions but still deems that to be a conservative quantity — plus bagels and carrot cake. The boys fall on it like a pack of wolves.

Well, most of us do. Nieboer, whose stomach simply disappears before batting, just nibbles on an oat bar, while Cakey is a picture of absolute f*cking mortification. He’s not eating sh*t. I can barely see him; the body of Cake is there but the spirit of Cake has gone somewhere else. The poor guy is white as a ghost, and I fear he might actually die without some kind of stimulant.

Nonetheless, he’s still good to open, he says. But in the second over he’s gone, ushering in Nieboer at No.3, whose roaming around the order in the past few weeks has baffled and concerned many, I’ve noticed.

One man without any concern is Suri. He smokes their opening bowler for 19 off an over, that magical glint in his eye visible from the non-striker’s end. After just the sixth over, the score 29-1, he tells Nieboer that he “just wants to get this done”. He’s out shortly after for 20, chopping on, Mother Cricket perhaps delivering a firm smack on the bottom there, for daring to think that this sport is easy.

Because, of course, it really isn't. Umar Iqbal and Nieboer have to withstand a fair bit of pressure now — against an attack that’s hardly perfect but a lot stronger than their batting. They rattle through their bowlers and it’s a weird mixture of everything: left arm spin, reasonably good outswing, regulation dobblers, indickers, actual bouncers that fly past the nose.

Thankfully, after being in some trouble at 33-2, Umar and Nieboer do get a bit of rhythm going, the former producing silky drives and running hard and even swatting a tennis shot-like stroke back at the bowler that races for four and nearly takes out Suri, who is umpiring without any shoes.

By the time Umar departs for 34, the score is 101-3 and the game feels secure. The hard-on that St Clements felt an hour ago has dissipated into flaccid nothingness — made worse by the presence of Chris Butlin, now in at No.5, whose shapes look so perfect that it’s kind of impossible to imagine him making a mistake.

Watching Butlin at the other end, Nieboer notices for the first time that some of these blokes are wearing jeans. One guy is wearing a burgundy jumper and dark joggers, which Butlin can’t stand. He smokes a sumptuous cover drive — pure vintage Butlin — that somehow doesn’t go for four. We run three, and Nieboer, out there for about 20 overs now, feels like he may have a hernia or an aneurism or perhaps just sh*t himself.

Thankfully, it doesn’t come to that. Nieboer hits the winning runs in the 24th over, finishing on 55* (68), Butlin on 21* (17). The two teams gather for a nice wholesome end-of-game photo. Butlin tells one of their players, about to take the photo, to get in the picture, “so that you can remember the great day out you had” — a drive-by so barbed and unnecessary that Nieboer has a hard time staying vertical for the next few minutes.

Nieboer wants to head straight to the DSG and shower with the 1st XI, still playing against Dulwich 3rd XI on the Hollies, but Butlin is keen to experience Griffin showers for the first time. So once again it’s an intimate affair: Nieboer, Umar and Butlin — No.3, No.4, No.5 all lined up together — have a jolly old time in there. Umar wonders what happened to that awful syphilitic blue-stained towel that was at the DSG — he hadn’t seen it for a while — and I reassure him it’s with me, at home.

“I’ve taken her in,” I explain. “Yeah, taken her away from all that nasty stuff. Washed her at the highest temperature. Double pod. She looks great, I can assure you.”

Over on the Hollies, we watch the 1st XI claim a crucial victory over Dulwich. Umar and I go on a boundary walk. Clockwise on the Hollies, Liam Gray tells us.

“Anti clockwise just doesn’t feel right at all,” he says, trying to remember which way is right. “That’s not wickets. Just does not feel like wickets at all, does it.”

He’s right. The boundary walk with Umar yields three wickets, including a great catch from Azharul Haque and a direct hit from Max McCreery that has the boys howling and roaring with delight — that high and beautiful energy you can only get with a run out. We sit down, content with our efforts, Umar and I, then witness Duray take one of the best catches any of us have ever seen.

Butlin has been demanding beer for the last 30 minutes. He knows Nieboer is due for a jug and all but grabs him by the ear and hauls him to the DSG, which steadily fills with both 1s and 2s players, all of whom are in that manic high state of charged happiness that comes with a big win on the field.

Nieboer breaks out a pack of jammy dodgers and it lasts about 10 seconds. Hands come from everywhere, in an almost horror-movie-like manner. Sean McGurn has hit 50 and we all serenade the boy with love, delighted to know that c*nty-in-the-runs Sean is now back. Matt Spencer tells me about how he kept asking one of the Dulwich batters what they were doing later, and whether he could come. Dom Scott accuses Angus Osborne, who once again scored runs, of playing one of the “ugliest swishes” he’d ever seen. Benny, meanwhile, can’t stop impersonating a very specific clip from the Big Lez Show, which is exactly my humour.

As the grey light darkens and the jugs pile up, Jackie brings out spare sandwiches — one of the best DSG rituals — and gets the loudest cheer of the day. Duray stacks two on top of each other and chomps down, which may have been a covert way of telling his players: ALWAYS TURN THOSE ONES INTO TWOS. Sean, meanwhile, demolishes his sandwich in one go, which may also be a metaphor for the shots he hit down the ground earlier.

Two sandwiches in one. Two jugs every 30 minutes. Two mangos for five dollars. Two kinds of leave. More than two kinds of morning drunk. And, most of all, two very happy victorious Plough sides, who have had the kind of day that almost makes those miserable winter months worth enduring.