Soon however we found the strip, which looked like a lovely batting wicket. Beloved Chairman Carson made a strong case to join the tossers subgroup by winning the toss, then deciding to go against Giordy's advice and batted first. This turned out to be the right move as Hanzi and Umar rocketed us out to 70 runs, at just over a 100 strike rate.

This however was ended when Umar, on 29 runs, was on the wrong end of some divine intervention, as a ball pitched on middle and leg, then nipped away to clip the very top of off, against all evidence that had stacked up so far that day. He may also have been distracted by the bowler flirting with him, repeatedly mentioning how attractive Umar's leg glances were. Our quick start looked in danger of slowing down, mostly because Ainslie, who is known for his sub 50 strike rate, was playing on a dodgy knee. Clearly though, a little bit of pain is all he needed to spur him to play cricket the way our Lord and saviour Brendan McCullum intended, smacking three boundaries in his first 7 balls.

At least with this style of play we were assured a moral victory on the day. An unfortunate ball that lept off a length did for our Scottish Labrador (affectionate) soon after, departing for a rapid 15. Big Jon strolled out to the middle in some sports glasses fitting of a 1980s basketball star. He similarly smashed a quick fire 14 before top edging a ball that popped. Still looking strong, we had an anchor in Hanzi. They had no answer for him. Wide, Hanzi cut. Short, Hanzi pulled. Bayern Munich manager, Hanzi flick (not gonna say how long that terrible joke took me to come up with, let's just say people at work have seen me muttering to myself all day).

Despite his imperious batting, one somehow snuck through his defences and hit him in front of middle. 2 new batsman at the crease, Michael Appleton and Jo Hockings. If I said one of them had gotten home at 10:30 am after drowning his sorrows from defeat the day before, I think 100% of the club could guess who I meant. This, frustratingly for anyone else who thinks they have some cricket ability, didn't seem to stop him from bludgeoning 50 runs. He even put some sauce on top by casually jogging backwards for a single at one point.

Debutant Appleton supported ablely and showed off his credentials as a possible yoga instructor when he ducked under a ball that popped up, before the ball started to dip, continuously forcing him to squat lower and lower until the ball just missed the top of the stumps. You could say he had an Appleton lean, under bounc-errrr, the whole ground was looking at the batter, he hit the floor, he hit the floor, Appleton got low low low low low low looow.

Despite this final partnership helping us rack up a respectable 205 runs, we couldn't help but feel like we were 40-50 short. This feeling was made worse by the realisation there were no teas. This was quickly fixed by Rivers, Rick and Si shooting off to tesco to buy an assortment of food and beer. Clearly, this was exactly the refueling Vikki needed as he strangled their opener with a bouncer that he tickled through to Ainslie behind the stumps. Our tails were up and we felt confident we could get this game over and done with, we strutted back to our marks like peacocks. Similarly to peacocks, we were pretty vulnerable and useless when our tails were up.

Vikki finished off a good spell but woth no further reward. Giordy couldn't find a hole in their defences either. Jo and Simon managed to slow their scoring well, with some very tight accurate bowling but they knew if they could last out the early onslaught the hit weather would get to us. Their 2 batsman racked up a mammoth partnership of over 150, eventually broken by myself. Setting the trap by leaving cow corner open, stacking the offside and bowling wide offies, their skipper skied one to Jo Hockings who took a solid catch.

It was too little too late unfortunately and they slowly milked us around and finished us off. Frustrating as it was, a day in the sun with the Plough is never a waste of time, especially when 2 teams come together at the G afterwards to get around and support each other. Everyone got behind us and cheered us up, well nearly everyone, Britto reminding us that theirs was the only side to win this weekend. I do like when someone speaks truly though x. We go again next week, a chance at redemption. Plough on x Harry

Match report produced by Harry Davies