With clouds in the air and no sign of sunshine breaking through, Captain Leo won the toss and elected to field, and after a rigorous warm up of a slow jog round the field (mainly to keep warm, the Plough were ready for the task at hand.

Some tight bowling in the first 10 overs restricted their batters to 3-4 runs per over but the breakthrough in the wickets column just seemed to elude us. Their batsmen were artists at finding the gap aerially, and by a mixture of luck or misfortunate on our side, never quite found our fielders, which would end up being the theme of the day.

Then the breakthrough finally came, their opening being trapped LBW by some wonderful bowling from Carl Viberg and then just before drinks break an amazing throw by Ritik on the boundary rope resulted in a run out.

With 8 wickets in hand, Addington approached overs 20-30 quite cautiously and then had a bit of a rampage in the last 10 overs, with their opening batsmen reaching 70 before being caught off the bowling off Benny — a great low catch by Robert Mead. Addington batsmen were also let off the hook twice with two official drops from Alex GW and one from Nigel and some more “unofficial drops”.

Addington ended on 222 — a good score on a tough outfield which didn’t run.

Ploughmans started the chase well but Mead was unfortunate to play on and this brought Benny to the crease who set up a very nice partnership with Mcgurn, both looking very settled, until right before Tea, when Benny got a low one after batting well for 25.

After Tea, Mcgurn carried on the counter attack but was then bowled for 37. This brought in the captain who hit a delicious 4 on his first shot but then too got a very unfortunate low one and was shortly back in the pavilion.

Sensing a batting collapse Ean battled solidly and batted all the way through while the rest of us unfortunately collapsed around him. With Rob being injured, once 9 wickets were down that was the game and Addington took the win by 99 runs.

It was a loss within only double figures, instead of three, which is a plus. And apparently, we play them again this season so hopefully we can avenge this defeat swiftly.

Man of the match – Ean Smith

Match report produced by Alex GW