It’s a hot day — the kind of weather you can feel through your closed blinds and has you sweating at 09:00.

Leo Nieboer, going through his morning routine of shouting at the mirror and dry heaving in the shower, makes a mental note to acquire some of that Piz Buin sun cream, which he already knows he won’t apply but will most certainly give a fair few sniffs. That weird Swiss white liquid is right up there with my favourite smells, rivalling petrol, freshly cut grass, and that waft of artificial niceness whenever you go 100ft within a Subway.

Our game today is in Addington Village, all the way down in Croydon, which means jumping on the tram, and it’s a strange experience. The seats are sticky; ventilation is poor. Nieboer can smell the people around him. Worse, he can smell himself, already pouring with sweat. The tram lurches round corners and careens down hills and sort of vibrates the whole way, making the 20 minutes from West Croydon to Addington Village feel a lot longer.

Getting to the ground — a picturesque slice of green in a picturesque sleepy suburban village reeking of decay and second mortgages — Nieboer is haunted by memories of the last time he played here, when Ploughmans faced Addington 1743 in September 2023 and were bowled out for 42. The pitch was a shit tip and extras were the top scorer. Simon Carson then drove me and Nicko Dowell back home and I kept laying on them a series of extremely dirty stories that neither man asked for.

None of that today, I think, heading out there to toss with Addiscombe’s skipper. At least not until after the game. For the first time this season, Nieboer calls correctly, and Ploughmans are batting first.

Three balls in, Suri Poleboina pops one up and is caught, the ball sticking in the pitch and hitting the top half of his bat. Still a shit tip, then, I think, heading out there to join Iskandar Eaton. And it’s not great, the pitch. Some balls stay painfully low; others shoot through. Mostly, though, it’s just slow, painfully slow, making timing exceedingly difficult.

The pair nonetheless do manage to get some rhythm going, Iskandar looking especially elegant and composed, playing the ball with soft hands, emitting a hauntingly quiet calm authority on his way to 50 (57), so much so that I almost can’t believe it when he scoops a drive to gully. Him and Nieboer have taken the score from 1-1 to 83-2.

Determined to keep Addiscombe on the backfoot, Nieboer has moved the order around at drinks, taken at 15 overs today, in response to a sun that’s beating down so hard you can see the air shimmering, like one of those desert scenes in Breaking Bad. Stephen Britto and Nealon Francois AKA Champion Boss, down to bat at 6 and 7 respectively, move up to 4 and 5.

Now batting with Britto, Nieboer comes to appreciate how batters come in all shapes and sizes and — most of all — temperaments. While Iskandar hums at a low and tranquil frequency — this serene silence vibrating around him, saying little more than “keep going” in between overs — Britto is a whirlwind of sharp movements and noise. He hits three sixes on his way to 32 (29), one of which goes just over deep cover.

“Jesus,” he says in the middle, “I thought that guy was Qammar (Jamshaid), not a fielder.”

Nieboer, whose energy levels are now dangerously depleted, finds himself talking with Britto almost every ball now, because he knows Britto likes that. Some people need silence; others must be talked to completion. Many ways to achieve release, as I told Carson and Nicko on that drive home.

Just like Iskandar, Nieboer gets his 50 and is out straight after, so it’s time for Champion Boss, who may be the most unbothered person I’ve ever met. He deals almost exclusively in boundaries, hitting 10 fours on route to 47 (38), smearing some balls with such disrespect that they’ll probably need therapy, if anyone can actually find them.

In at 7, which feels criminally low, Chris Butlin brings yet another style and temperament to the crease. We’ve had Iskandar’s calm, Nieboer’s controlled mania, Britto’s belligerence, CB’s nonchalance; now we’ve got sniper-like precision. He hits 44* off 25 and the whole thing just looks phenomenal, the shapes and manipulation of space so effortless it feels a bit rude. And he’s not even timing any of it — just solid shapes and picking out gaps. With each of his 10 boundaries, Britto, on the sidelines, is getting increasingly excited.

“It’s ONLY boundaries!” he’s saying after each one, his register climbing an octave each time.

Butlin has a real look of steely cold command out there. Iskandar is scoring and Nieboer, now umpiring, has to wait ages for the signal after one of Butlin’s fours. Izzy, as he admitted later, was “behind the 8 ball with scoring all day”. Britto gives Nieboer a wave, just to make him feel better. Butlin snaps at Iskandar.

“Any F*CKING DANGER, IZZY??” he booms.

Jay Patel, at the other end, somewhat incredibly down to bat at 9 — what f*cking mug of a captain put him there — is the only Ploughman who looks to be timing the ball. Hits his first delivery for four through the covers and it’s… unimprovable. Needed precisely zero balls to get a sense of this tricky deck.

After all that madness, Plough finish on 276-8.

During tea, which involves chicken goujons and slices of cheese and bhajis all mashed into a self-made wrap, Butlin and I ruminate on how they don’t seem to send dogs to space anymore.

“They should send Lucky,” I offer.

Butlin nods, chewing. “You reckon they could send his paddling pool up there as well?”

“I doubt it, man. Pretty sure water behaves, like, differently up there.”

“What about Bad Jake?”

“Bad Jake wouldn’t even realise he was in space, I don’t think.”

“I don’t think he’s actually affected by gravity.”

“No, I don’t think he is. You know when they do re-entry and it goes all red and scary? None of that would bother him at all.”

I pause for a second, thinking. “He might actually like it.”

Back out on the field, Damon Greeney and Callum Daley make a good start, taking a wicket each. Jay Patel at first change gets in on the act as well, taking off stump out of the ground, reducing Addiscombe to 80-3 on the stroke of drinks.

Things then start to become distinctly unenjoyable. We’ve got a right-hand left-hand combination at the crease now, which Nieboer is starting to realise is by far his least favourite thing about being captain, and they’re just not going anywhere. Nor are they really scoring at a spectacular rate. If anything, they’re actively hampering Addiscombe’s already-slim chances of chasing this total, but it’s annoying, nonetheless.

Nieboer decides to go with spin from both ends: Iskandar — who told me on Wednesday afternoon that he was “already getting loose”, and has been telling me, for several weeks, that he averages 12 with the ball — and Champion Boss, who doesn’t need to say much at all.

It’s an excellent combo, and it breaks Addiscombe down, like a dam finally bursting open after sustained pressure, water suddenly everywhere. Iskandar is so metronomic that Nieboer goes on a kind of mental autopilot during his overs, switching on only when Butlin spills one over the boundary. Another ball comes near him and he gathers it just fine.

“Not that hard, is it?” I jeer at him, enticing nibble from Butlin so huge he’s basically swallowed the rod as well as the bait, like an 800 pound marlin, and he realises his fault straight away, burying his face in his hands, Nieboer absolutely roaring with laughter.

Iskandar finishes on 3-22 off 8 overs, so he averages even less than 12 now. “He’s not bad for a child,” one of the oppo tells Butlin, still stationed on the short boundary.

“Yeah, promising young man, isn’t he,” Butlin replies. “Doing his GCSEs soon. We’re all very proud of him.”

At the other end, Champion Boss seems to have about eight different deliveries that he can unleash any time he chooses. Some spit, others jag, others just kind of die in the pitch. With four blokes close around the bat and Boss blowing pads off left right and centre, it’s sensational viewing. He takes 3-19 off his six overs, giving each batter a delightful send off.

“Lemme FEED you, boy,” he booms at their captain, having trapped him dead in front, which has Umar Iqbal in stitches.

Addiscombe are all out for 144. Another 20 points for the Ploughmans 2nd XI, which warrants a lively team shower, but unfortunately our changing room only has one shower, so we have to all just sit there and shout general noises of approval at whoever’s in there.

We head to a pub appropriately named The Cricketers, and it’s a lovely affair. We’ve been smacked by the sun all day and in the process gone slightly insane, out here in the bowels of leafy Croydon, which I’m realising more and more is mainly just roundabouts and the same large copy and paste pubs marooned in far-flung places that make no sense, like the one we find ourselves in now.

We’re talking about what our death row drinks would be. Iskandar doesn’t need to think: ice cold coca cola in the glass.

I counter with spicy margarita, or perhaps just a Guinness.

“Gimme a nice strawberry daiquiri and I’m GOOD,” Champion Boss interjects, which draws some surprise from the boys. “Yeah, strawberry daiquiri is all I need, man.”

Butlin, who refuses to sit down in an attempt to avoid seizing up completely — which shouldn’t even be happening when you’ve only faced 24 balls — asks me for a song. I give him the Tom Lonnen one, ensconced in my head since September, and we give it a little run out. Butlin tells me that the Lonnen song is touring for the first time this week, causing truly unbearable levels of FOMO.

Nieboer is starting to feel drunk. He’s three Guinnesses in and hasn’t eaten much today. Champion Boss shells his Guinness in two almighty gulps.

“That’s just juice, man,” he says dismissively, looking at the glass with disapproval, while Nieboer staggers to the toilet.

Umar drives Iskandar and I back to the Smoke, and we learn that Umar literally had brain surgery.

“My brain was too big,” he explains, turning around to show us a notable scar by his medulla. It’s an astonishing fact that I can’t believe I didn’t know. They cut into this f*cker’s brain! Most people spend the rest of their lives on a sofa, after the surgery Umar had, but instead this guy is managing the cover region for me — an absolute master of angles. I would argue that his brain remains too large.

We have a debate on the best curry house in London. Umar insists it’s Lahore Kebab House — particularly their haleem and lamb nihari. I side with Tayyabs, which does a fantastic fish karahi. Iskandar offers up Khan’s of Brixton, which neither of us have heard of, and throws in a shout for Brick Lane.

Umar shakes his head. “Brick Lane is just Bengali people cooking food they don’t know for white people who don’t even appreciate it.”

And with that, Iskandar and I jump out at Lewisham, the former heading for the DLR, Nieboer mounting a Lime bike and zooming off into the night — feeling extremely grateful to be playing in a team as powerful as this 2nd XI, who have made the perfect start to their league campaign.