Having played at this ground twice before this season and amassed over 500 runs for the loss of just seven wickets in the process, Matt Spencer understandably chose to have a bat after winning the toss. What followed is hard to describe. Put simply: we shat the bed.

Ploughmans crumbled like a muffin in the rain. Steve Britto smashed one to slip third ball — an incredible catch — while Leo Nieboer, at the other end, found himself folded like a pretzel by an inswinger. Rohan Paul and Harry Edmonds were castled shortly after and following 20 minutes the score read 16-4. “Not even 1pm,” I thought, “and your day is done, Nieboer, you prick. DONE.”

The game, however, was not done quite yet. Hussain Selmi, making his debut for the 2s, dug in impressively, eating up 25 balls of vicious swing and variable bounce. We had told him the deck was good; what he got was spitting cobras and bonfires on the hill — a nightmarish blend of fizz and pop and hyena-like noises abounding from every corner of the ground. Alongside Tom Elmslie, top scorer of the day with a battling 23 (57), he managed to somewhat stem the tide until the rain came.

For a brief moment I thought the whole affair might be called off: we could go to the pub and pretend none of it happened, pretend it was some awful dream, or some obscure collective LSD flashback. Not to be. The rain and thunder abated, the boys went back out there, Giordy Diangienda (Cheer XI specialist) turned up moaning about his omission from the side, and Nieboer and Edmonds decided they didn’t want any part of it. They sauntered off to grab coffees for some teammates (Britto gets a white americano, if you were wondering) and did the usual thing of trying to justify their dismissals, pinpointing where exactly they went wrong, eventually deciding that we were just unlucky and that some immaterial force had conspired against us and caused our good selves to miss straight ones.

Returning to the ground, Damon Greeney was walking out to bat — a horribly jarring sight. The score read 54-9. In the 20 minutes we had been away, Plough had wallowed and drowned in a riptide of their own making, shooting themselves in not just the foot but every orifice. An eerie silence hovered over the group, punctuated every now and again by Giordy. “You lot are in trouble, you know.” “You batters fu&%ed up, man.” “I’d get BARE wickets on this pitch.” Thanks, Giordy. Dunno what I’d do without you.

Defending a mere 65, our task in the field was simple. Plough had to be impeccable. They had to be ravenous and ruthless and even slightly horny. And they were. Over the course of an hour, the 2s produced the best fielding performance I’ve been part of. From one end, Rohan was ferocious. A little scary, even. That long run-up and ability to pour through the crease like molten lava, the ball coming out of his hand as if released from Satan's very own slingshot, makes him seem genuinely unplayable. He drew an edge in the first over, caught by Edmonds, but once again the umpire was unmoved — another obvious league wicket ignored, inevitable as rivers flowing into the sea. He finished on 0-16 off five overs. He will only get better. He’s already faster than all of you. He’s only 15. A frightening prospect.

At the other end, Lewis Wilby was spot on. Fast and precise, as always. He castled one opener, and bowled one that got so big on the other opener that he fell forward while playing a shot and lay mangled and stranded out of his crease, allowing Nieboer to quite literally run from mid wicket with ball in hand and whip the bails off. Wild celebrations ensued. 16-2. We had a game here.

Spencer, coming on first change, made sure that the boot remained firmly on the opposition’s neck, taking three wickets in no time at all — including yet another bowled that reaffirmed the much-espoused notion, particularly between myself and Britto, that this pitch was essentially unplayable, and that us openers had done nothing wrong at all. At 56-5, with just 9 runs required, Plough still felt they were in the game — a testament to the monster mentality cultivated among these boys over the last few months. I felt proud to be out there with them. Hardly anything got through us. Nothing got dropped. Everyone was loud and everyone believed. We made what should have been a cakewalk for the oppo a teeth-grinding nightmare that they only just about negotiated — courtesy of their No.3 ringer who opened the bowling and looked a cut above everyone else for his 34*.

On another day, with another 40 runs or so, Plough may have won this game. Then again, if your top three only musters one run between them, you get what you deserve. As the Invincibles knocked off those last few runs, thick black clouds closed in. Thunder crackled in the distance. The wind picked up. Visibility dropped. And as the No.3 slapped Spencer through the onside to win the game, heavy rain began to fall. Quite poetic, really. I believe English teachers would call that “pathetic fallacy”. Cricket is a game composed mainly of gloom and despair, and now the weather was throwing exactly that in our faces. As if we needed any visual reminder of the grim reality of loving this sport. Why, why oh why, do we do this to ourselves? Masochists, aren’t we? All of us are one step away from taking a paddle to the arse. Some of us are already there. As Britto astutely remarked, after observing a happy family go by on their way to or from some wholesome Saturday activity: “Could have done anything with today. And here I am, with you blokes, no runs, shivering, eating a fu&%ing meal deal in a park!” See you next week, Steve. We both know we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Match report produced by Leo Nieboer