The day did not start as planned for our beloved friend. Under the impression that captain of the day would be our Divinely Ordained Glorious Dear Leader Chairman Simon Carson, AJ was distressed to learn, 45 minutes from play, that he was in fact the one wearing the armband. AJ likes to implement a meticulous planning process and even a Rocky-style training montage ahead of his games as captain, so this news made him understandably anxious.

Nonetheless, he started the game well, doing what so many Plough captains seemingly hate to do these days: win the toss and bat. Jo Hockings and Leo Nieboer — the classic free-flowing left-hander and gritty arthritic right-hander combo — opened up the innings nicely, relentlessly stealing ones and twos from ball one and putting pressure on the Corinthians attack.

Both batters rode their luck at times. Nieboer nicked one to slip, who spent about five minutes juggling the ball before eventually putting it down, nearly giving the batter cardiac arrest in the process, while Hockings was dropped at least twice as he looked to push the game forward. Hockings found himself handicapped by the dire condition of his new £300 bat, which appeared to have no middle at all. Finding the middle turned out to be harder than locating the G-spot.

And while Hockings continues to struggle with that latter task, he did manage to produce some gorgeous shots on his way to a season-best 56, including one square cut that had Nieboer foaming at the mouth from the non-striker’s end. By drinks, the pair had taken Plough to 93-0 off 16 — a commanding position.

Four balls into the second half of the innings, Nieboer, once again this season, decided to well and truly f&@k himself between the wickets, run out needlessly for 37 and ushering in the arrival of Duray Pretorius at three, which actually turned out to be a good thing. The Manic Crab was replaced by the Swinging Dick, and suddenly Plough were racing along. He plundered five sixes on his way to 47 off a mere 20 balls (absolutely hates to bat, this guy — hates it), hitting almost exclusively in the V, before Max Wright cursed him. The admin guru, camera in hand, announced he would photograph Duray smashing his next six; instead he only captured the thicc South African being bowled.

Even so, Plough were in a fantastic position — 147-2 with more than 10 overs to go, plenty of batting to come. Sadly this was when the comedy started: Hector Barnicoat-Hood got hit in the dick and then leg-glanced a ball onto his stumps; Hari Vignesh hit a lovely four and then hit his own wicket; Max Wright, doing his best Nieboer impression, got himself in and then smashed his stumps with a late cut. Four wickets fell in no time at all, and if it wasn’t for a rather pretty late cameo from the very pretty Lewis Wilby (22), Plough may not have passed 200.

Returning from tea, the Ploughmen felt 215 off 35 overs was a very defendable target. Nieboer got a nasty surprise prior to the second innings: he’d left a closed six-pack of Krispy Kremes on the grass, and when he came back to the Hollies, he discovered the box had been menaced by dogs; three donuts were splayed half-eaten across the grass and the others were gone. A sad and unnecessary state of affairs, a harbinger of what was to come.

On the field, Plough started well, Wilby bowling pure heat and Vikki taking an excellent caught and bowled. Their No.3 then burned the side’s opening batter, who happened to be Division One’s leading run-scorer, Hockings taking advantage of the abject confusion by literally running to the stumps and taking off the bails himself.

The fielding effort played itself out against the soundtrack of Josh Kerr, a leading Vibes Captain at the Plough this season. He was a ball of hilarious manic articulate energy all day, producing about three songs for Vikki and racing between fielding positions every over, screaming, at one point: “IF YOU’RE NOT FASTER THAN ME, YOU JUST DON’T WANT IT ENOUGH!”

His best verbal contribution, for me, came in the form of a pitch-perfect TFL announcer impression for no good reason at all that went: “IF YOU SEE SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T LOOK PLOUGH, PLEASE SPEAK TO A MEMBER OF PLOUGH, OR TEXT: PLOUGH PLOUGH PLOUGH PLOUGH PLOUGH PLOUGH — SEE IT, SAY IT, PLOUGH ON.”

Genius. Still laughing about it now.

A less funny development was Plough’s fielding effort as we entered the middle overs. Six catches went down, or maybe seven. I don’t remember; it all blends into one vicious dysfunctional nightmare. Hockings shelled two chances on the boundary; Hector had two hard flat drives smash his fingers and go for valuable runs; Wilby received two identical chances on the long on boundary, and both times let the ball fly through his hands and over the rope for six in exactly the same way. The boy went rather quiet after that, consumed with fear at the prospect of a third chance coming his way.

One school of thought suggests the blame for this lies with Ollie Tennant, who rocked up for his debut Cheer XI appearance of the summer. He offered to take photos of us fielding, which seemed innocent enough, but when one presumably dazzling snap of Hockings immediately preceded the first drop of the day, we wondered, in hindsight, whether that moment was the catalyst for Plough’s monumental breakdown in the field.

All of this was happening amid a series of violent verbal taunts from the Corinthians sheds. They reacted savagely to being asked to update the scoreboard. Wright, at one point, tried to inform the scorer of a new bowler, only to receive a torrent of expletives in return.

There were some pockets of good bowling: Carson brought control, as always, while Mo Khan hit great areas and deserved a wicket; Hector bowled so well he actually took himself off after three overs, while Duray pinned their No.3 LBW, only for the umpire to laugh in his face.

The painful lack of LBWs for Plough, despite many plumb deliveries, came as a result of Nieboer’s decision to not trigger Wright in the first innings. The ball was smashing the bottom of leg stump, and by not giving it, Nieboer effectively eliminated one mode of dismissal for the Plough, which brings me to a second school of thought: that Nieboer — not the terrible fielding or the batting collapse — was in fact responsible for this defeat. My lawyer has advised me to abstain from commenting on this allegation, although I’d be remiss to not point out that the whole thing may have been avoided if Wright simply played straight.

By the end, Corinthians won at a canter: they went from needing 10 an over to 5 runs off 25 balls in no time at all — a whirlwind of spectacular disintegration hallmarked by all kinds of ridiculous bloopers. Nonetheless spirits were good throughout, and after some rather nasty back-and-forths with the opposition, the two teams sat together for a pint and a good-humoured dissection of the afternoon’s events when all was said and done. Their skipper even bought us a jug, which was terribly nice of him.

As the sun set over the DSG and jugs went down at a relentless rate, any negative feelings dissipated into thin air and were replaced by laughter, terrible chat, and yet another song from Kerr — this one dedicated to Fixtures Secretary Leon Parks, to the tune of Blur’s ‘Parklife’, which I will use to round off this overwritten screed:

“He does all the fixtures
So many fixtures
He bats and keeps as well
It’s Leon’s Parklife!”

See it, say it, Plough on (and in).

Match report Produced by Leo Nieboer
*Scorecard pending