Leo Nieboer wakes up feeling just fine, although he’s vaguely haunted by yet another strange dream he doesn’t understand. For some reason his dreams are much worse in the heat. Lately his subconscious has bounced and popped like an egg on a hot frying pan.

This one is especially jarring because it’s cricket related. Nieboer is standing at the crease of a gargantuan wicket. It’s clearly a league game: there’s that slightly hushed, heavier feel to the occasion. The deck is the size of a football pitch, though. It’s hard to tell. What’s really weird is the pitch’s complexity; the lines that bind and define play are as complex and convoluted as the Alhambra Palace. There are lines going every which way, running oblique or meeting and forming relationships and boxes and concentric patterns and tributaries. We’re looking at systems inside systems: lines, corners, alleys, fibonacci sequences. Nieboer has the sense that he should know what they all mean, especially as the opening batter and captain. He stands there tentatively, holding his bat with a split grip. It’s simply huge, this deck. The umpire, who is in this instance a kind of knock off Father Christmas dressed in a singlet and tennis shorts, whispers Play. Nieboer gets into his stance and taps at this obscene crease and tries to figure out what all the lines mean and reminds himself to watch the ball. The umpire whispers Please Play. The bowler runs in. But it’s all sort of hypothetical, somehow. Nieboer never gets to see the ball.

The bizarre dream plays over in his head as he makes his usual commute to the Griffin. He’s taking extra care to follow all his usual routines, to offset the portented chaos and confusion broadcasted by these schizophrenic nighttime visions. Which means: 10:45 Windrush line to Queens Road Peckham; purchase oat bars, apples, lucozade; Lime bike towards Dulwich Village (no headphones allowed — this is usually where Nieboer decides on who stands where in the field); purchase a £5.30 iced oat latte from Redemption Roasters; walk over to the Griffin; sit down, smoke cigarette, drink aforementioned overpriced beverage; have second nervous poo of the morning; start grabbing stumps, bails, scoreboard — at which point another early bird arrives, typically Benny Cobbett or Damon Greeney, but on this day is Tom Elmslie.

We look at the pitch together. We both conclude we don’t know what it means, like always. By now, Ashish Paul has turned up, fresh from his own iteration of nighttime chaos. He’d been drinking until about 02:30, sending down astonishingly cheap rum and cokes in Tower Hill, gone home, made an omelette, slept for three hours, and come straight here. He’s now eating fried chicken and samosas, which at this hour smell absolutely rancid to Nieboer, gushing at how wonderful it is here, at the Griffin.

Narvin Ganesh brings yet more chaos. He’s forgotten his white shirt, and for some reason turned up at the DSG, despite this being, like, his fourth game at the Griffin for the 2nd XI.

Apart from that, everything does seem to be in order. The boys get the ground ready and Nieboer, for the first time since what feels like the bloody neolithic period, wins the toss, and decides to have a bat.

Thankfully, the pitch is normal. No intricate and elaborate wicket resembling a sculpture of string. Nieboer can see the ball. It’s swinging in a great deal, slowly, like a reverse Liam Gray.

Iskandar Eaton doesn’t see the ball. His first delivery very slowly and confusedly goes between bat and pad, and he’s bowled. Elmo, in at three, can see the ball but can’t get off the mark. He’s hitting the ball nicely, but straight at fielders, and Nieboer — especially skittish having barbequed himself the week before — keeps sending him back, Elmo something of a cat on a hot tin roof, here in these early stages.

In any case, the pair do rebuild, before Elmo is triggered by Puff for 12 (31), the two encountering a slight divergence of opinion on the matter. Benjamin Barnard, on his league debut, comes in and is clearly nervous. His second ball is a dolly, dropped at point. But slowly, by degrees, the pair wrestle back some momentum. Barnard is essentially Nieboer’s Chris Butlin Replacement Service, in at four, the latter, Nieboer’s vice captain, now lost to the 1st XI, which Nieboer did kind of expect all along. And he’s doing a nice Butlin tribute here: his shapes are gorgeous and he hits the ball even harder than Nieboer’s dear bald friend.

They put on a 64-run partnership before Nieboer, on 31 (65) and conscious of the big boys with big shoulders waiting in the shed, tries to get a move on and sinks one down mid off’s throat. The score is 103-3 from 27 overs. We are a little behind where we want to be. Addiscombe are bowling quite well. They have one of those left arm spinners who doesn’t turn it but never ever misses his spot, always bowling into you, and Nieboer hates him.

But Ploughmans have big boys. Big, beautiful, adult boys with children and mortgages and everything, and it’s these boys — Nicko Dowell and Nealon Francois AKA Champion Boss — who moonball Addiscombe into a narcoleptic coma in these last 12 overs, scoring 96 together, Boss finishing on 53* (42), Nicko on 27 (22). It’s funny, standing at umpire, watching these two big sets of levers trying to muscle every ball and growling and cursing whenever they don’t time it well. It’s a stark contrast to Nieboer and Barnard, who are fundamentally beta. They’re both umpiring now, Nieboer sucking on his vape and Barnard shooting pigeons flying overhead with an imaginary 12 bore. Ploughmans have finished on 227-5.

Tea is once again provided by Lee, a lovely petite Thai woman, who makes these rolls packed with spicy brown potatoey mush, plus a sh*tload of flabby watermelon. The bowlers start going through their motions — apart from Puff, who has his own warmup: smoking a cigarette on the sidelines and conversing with the oppo.

And yet, on the pitch, Puff is luminous, unwavering, ruthless. Nieboer, standing at slip, can’t understand it. The man never nets; he’s slept three hours; he may be still drunk; he does no sort of warming up at all… and yet, coming into the crease, he doesn’t miss. He never misses. It’s something you can really appreciate from slip. Stood there with Iskandar keeping and Callum Daley at second slip, we start to commiserate with Addiscombe’s opener, a nice guy, about our age, called Michael Dean, who has a good defence but not much else, and is clearly struggling with Puff’s relentlessness, keeps groping at the ball.

“Michael Gropey Dean,” Callum jeers.

“Puff Daddy and Michael Gropey Dean going at it,” Nieboer says. “Jesus.”

“He’s gonna get cancelled in a minute,” Iskandar adds.

Dean is ultimately bowled, and Nieboer immediately kind of misses him. He has a very kind face, does Michael. Callum wonders if he’d come shower with us at the G.

Puff’s other wicket is somewhat startling. It’s a proper edge, flying past Nieboer at first slip, who puts a hand out and the ball somehow sticks. The boys go ballistic — partly because it draws us closer to the 20 points but mainly because everyone’s simply so stunned Nieboer actually caught it.

At the other end, Giordy does the same thing he does every week: dismisses their opener. If he hadn’t bowled seven wides, half of which were dubious, he’d have ended on figures of 1-6 off five overs. He has 19 league wickets this season and he didn’t even moan about Thomas Tuchel once on this day, so Nieboer is happy.

Replacing Giordy is Narvin, looking resplendent in Nieboer’s white t-shirt, taking a wicket with his first ball, smashing the stumps, clearly blessed by the good karma accrued over many months of Nieboer spilling jalfrezi on said white t-shirt. He’s also absolutely manic in the field, coming out with some awful chat, some of it funny. At one point he asks Nieboer what’s the level of chat that will get him incarcerated. Nieboer says he isn’t sure. “Okay,” he says. “Maybe I don’t say it.”

He also runs exactly like a cheetah going after some panicked gazelle, his strides so long they’re almost not human. At one point a ball is hit past Giordy at mid on, and Narvin, stood at mid off, actually gets to the ball at the same time as Giordy, the two nearly colliding with each other.

“Narvin Gaye,” Iskandar calls him.

“You know Marvin Gaye was killed by his dad?” Nieboer chimes in.

“Really?” Callum asks, somewhat shocked.

Addiscombe’s No.7 turns around. “It’s true,” he says. “Shot while asleep at home.”

“Wow. Well… okay then.”

The best figures of the day, however, go to Shamar Grant AKA Marz. 3-10 off 7 overs. An economy of 1.43. He’d spent most of the innings standing at cover being subjected to some terrible throws from Nieboer at slip, who just can’t get his parabolas right today, often taking balls in the ankle and walking around awkwardly for a minute or so afterwards. This happens about five times.

When he bowls, however, it’s all smooth round edges. Metronomic gorgeousness. Addiscombe have just navigated — or rather succumbed to — eight overs of Puff, and now THIS. They have been rolled for 69 — 17 of those extras — and on reflection I don’t think they even played many bad shots. Ploughmans have just been very good.

Coming off the pitch, Nicko’s partner, Mads, has brought us all cold Red Stripes. Nicko’s young daughter hands Nieboer one with a smile. It turns out that Narvin did have his white cricket shirt all along, the bastard.

Back at the DSG, the 1st XI have also won, so it’s a carnivalesque atmosphere. Nothing quite beats that cheer from the boys when the 2s round the corner. Nieboer whips them up, slapping fives, grabbing bottoms. He congratulates Dom Scott on reaching 50 Plough wickets, which is very impressive for a man who hasn’t once turned a ball.

Butlin and Nieboer have a long shower. We stand there naked, facing into the cavernous space, and reflect on our respective days. Back outside, Marz has ordered pizza, and many people have purchased jugs. Dom Scott nearly vomits at Nieboer drinking a Rekorderlig instead. We repurpose Michael Ainslie’s song for Callum Daley, who got a strong TFC today.

“Callum, Callum Daley,
Doesn’t bat or keep or bowl!
Callum, Callum Daley,
Doing nothing, all day long!”

Butlin also has a song for Carl Viberg, visiting the UK from Sweden for what’s turned out to be an extended Ploughmans tour. He’s basically been drinking and playing cricket for 18 straight days. The song starts off quite nice, then the lyrics devolve into almost exclusively talking about how he pisses on people. Carl Pissberg. The one and only.

People start melting away, so Nieboer does the same. He gets home and watches England play France in a “Bronze final” that seems to hover in a zone somewhere in between scintillating attacking play and a kind of Soccer Aid-esque comical farce — like if you gave a 10 year old a massive bottle of cherry cola and pack of haribos and told them to write a script for a game of football, then gave all the actors a load of Pervitin before heading out.

A chaotic end to a chaotic day, then. At least, when Nieboer puts his head down, his dreams are calmer — it’s mainly him being fed high-quality otoro sushi in a dentist’s chair, then being asked to spit it out into that bowl they have on the side, the raw tuna piling up and up.

But so much for that bad gibberish. The 2nd XI go again next week with Division 11’s top spot firmly in their sights.