This year would be different, though. We had a different team, and conditions were very different. Last year was baking hot,on a parched outfield; this year was cool, with a lush, green field, and a threat of rain in the air. Like last year we batted first. In a novel twist, the opposition chose to bowl with an orange ball, which we hoped would negate any swing bowlers they had in the team. They opened with one quick bowler and one very slow ‘spinner’. Sheffique and Cosgrove opened and put on 23. That was as good as it got for the Plough, the highest partnership of the innings. Wickets fell with depressing regularity, with Parks holding it all together with a captain’s innings at 5. Other than that, the most notable innings was Chivers’s 13 off 8 with no dot balls. When Parks was out for 32 with 3 balls remaining in the innings, we had been bowled out for 103. This was less than last year, off more overs, so overturning last year’s defeat did not look like a high probability.

Gray opened with a tight over, but with the first ball of the second, Chivers’s loosener was hit straight down Saidy’s throat at square leg. Chivers was getting the ball to hoop like a boomerang and picked up another couple of wickets, including a classic ‘leave and get bowled’. Glynne-Jones also picked up one, and Ball got a run out, hitting one-and-a-half stumps from backward square. When Saidy saw off their danger man, the captain, pinning him leg before with his second ball, we thought we were well in the game. Sadly, though, a patient partnership by two under-14s took them to within 10 runs of our total. At that point, one of them found the temptation of trying to smack Coach Rehan into the tennis courts too much to resist and top edged to Parks behind the stumps. The next man in knocked off the remaining runs with no fuss at all.

So we weren’t to avenge the defeat from last year, but we put up more of a fight, and it was a much more enjoyable game, with a more relaxed atmosphere. We retired back to the DSG to commiserate with the Gold team.

Match Report produce by Andrew Cosgrove
*Scorecard pending