Arriving at the ground way earlier than needed, it’s a pleasant Sunday sight: everywhere you look children are playing cricket, none of it any good; parents are watching on, enjoying the sun. One of them tries to get into the clubhouse via the window, which reminds me that nobody really knows what they’re doing, at any time — even rich Dulwich parents with second mortgages and drinking problems they refuse to acknowledge.

Benny Cobbett, playing in the other DSG game, is here early as well; he’s lathering himself in suncream and insisting I do the same. It is indeed rather warm today; I’m sitting in the shade, drinking iced coffee, and I’m still sweating. Although that’s mainly because my body’s overworked flushing mechanism is desperately trying to sift out the many evils perpetrated since learning, on Friday at 6pm, that our 2nd XI game on the Hollies was postponed — a red rag to a kinky bull if there ever was one.

Benny and I are speaking to John about the nice weather. He’s not exactly positive.

“Going to rain for the next two weeks,” he says. “No cricket next weekend.”

As we ponder this grim prospect, more team members trickle in. Giordy Diangienda is not in good spirits. We’re playing on the Nursery ground, and Giordy hates the Nursery ground, for some reason.

“It’s just so sh*t,” he keeps saying when I ask for more detail. “It’s sh*t for bowling. Today is gonna be sh*t.” He’s tired today, having played the day before, but insists on doing these manic sprints up and down the pitch, while the rest of us just kind of stand around, doing not much at all. Mo Khan regrips Harry Bray’s bat so quickly and decisively it almost turns me on. Chris Butlin and Michael Ainslie talk to me about Eurovision, which you couldn’t get me to watch under any circumstances, unless you put a gun to my grandmother’s head, or something.

We all start to ponder the same thing: where is our captain?

It’s 12:30, and Harry Davies is nowhere to be seen. He’s cycling here, from bloody Ealing, and has unsurprisingly encountered some complications. Nicko Dowell just goes out and does the toss for him. He’s so keen to bat that even if he lost the toss, and got sent into the field, I suspect he’d probably just stand over the S&M captain, all 6’9 of him, look him dead in the eyes, and shake his head slowly, authoritatively.

“Nah, mate. You blokes are having a roll.”

Whether that actually happened or not, I’m not sure. Either way, we are batting. Nieboer and Butlin head out there under the beating sun, and it’s typical Sunday stuff: no real pace, no real swing — just honest god-fearing stump-to-stump line and length. The pitch is slow, sticky; it’s hard to get it away. Soon enough, though, the pair are ticking along, taking the score to 44-0 after 10 overs.

Butlin is looking superb. He’s turning over the strike effortlessly and producing some sumptuous drives down the pitch. One cover drive through mid-off is so good my mouth hangs open like an old dog. He should get that damn shot trademarked, or something.

Butlin is in fact looking impenetrable, until, out of nowhere, cricket intervenes. One ball hits him on his thigh, on about sixth stump, and the umpire… gives it. He’s so not out that he’s walking away to square leg, resetting, not looking at the umpire. When he glances up and sees the dreaded finger, he looks like someone who’s just been told he’s being divorced. It’s a brutal sport, isn’t it? You travel from North London, go through all the pre-game anxiety, navigate the opening spell, start to look good, reach 22 runs, and then get absolutely f*cked for no good reason at all.

The umpire is not one of our boys. He’s a youngish bespectacled lad who, according to the S&M captain, is “learning” how to be an umpire. I don’t want to say anything too nasty here, because umpiring is hard. And besides, I’m already mired in a blizzard of libel and defamation suits — not to mention the hearing for the full custody of my children, which I plan to attend blazing drunk — but the kid did indeed project the aura of someone doing their second or maybe third driving lesson; still very much unsure, kind of guessing at every step.

A few overs later, he’s at it again. Michael Ainslie smashes one onto his pads, and he gives it, and Nieboer — finally losing his patience — turns around and says, a little louder than necessary, “Mate, he’s f*cking smashed it.” To his credit, he listens, and Ainslie is called back. It matters little, though, because he triggers the boy a few overs later. The gorgeous Scot has a similar look of shock, almost denial, and trots sadly off.

Nieboer and Bray put on a handy 50 partnership in no time at all, taking advantage of some moon balls and lovely outside-off stuff that the former gratefully gobbles up. It’s getting easier, much easier — so much so that Nieboer even hits a six on his way to 70 (70) before smashing one down long on’s throat, while Bray is dismissed for 28 (38). A good knock from the leg-side oriented new boy.

Watching Nicko plunder 22 (8), Butlin asks whether there’s some kind of saying involving bins and rubbish, but I’m not sure. Near the bin? On the bin? We come up with some other variations. Butlin offers: Put the sundries in the wastebasket. I suggest: Take the superfluous items to the designated refuse area. Still a work in progress. Other contributions welcome!

I wander over to the other Plough game, against Cincinnati (quite the away day), where Steve Britto has just hit one straight at point. I say a series of unhelpful things, and Britto politely invites me to leave, and not come back.

In our game, we’re having a slight wobble. Runs are drying up a bit and wickets are going down. Harry Davies and Alex Gordon Walker offer some decent resistance, scoring 12 and 15 respectively, but our final score of 194 all out feels 30 or even 40 short of where we could have been.

At tea, there’s talk of the United vs Arsenal game. I see that Amrabat and McTominay are starting in midfield, and briefly consider setting fire to the DSG.

No need for that, I think. It’s time for Giordy Diangienda — a different kind of flame.

Five overs in, it’s 54-0. One of their guys is teeing off at absolutely everything. A part of me almost gives up, thinks the game is over. Harry Davies gets a vicious case of the yips, the ball kind of sticking in his hand and falling vertically, straight down by his feet, when he bowls it.

To bring some control, Davies turns to Justin Cash, who quite simply drags Plough back into the affair and then puts them on top, all by himself. He removes their dangerous opener, then takes three in an over. S&M go from 75-0 to 94-4. In one magnificent spell hallmarked by control and flight and the occasional darter, all of it sticking in the pitch, he’s changed the game’s entire vibe. S&M are suffocating and drowning under the weight of Pure Cash, not unlike those godforsaken Dulwich parents.

The boys are absolutely frothing now, like dogs in a kennel at chow time. Giordy is giving incessant chat from deep point, frying each batter’s brain, the constant screech of his mocking tone ringing in their ears. At the other end, Mo Khan produces the best spell I’ve seen from him, trapping their other opener LBW — this one was plumb.

With five wickets left to take, S&M need 70. It’s in the balance. But Plough keep chipping away, keep themselves on top, Davies recognising, from early on, that pace off is the way on this sticky deck. Giordy gets in on the act, taking two wickets, while Nicko does the same from the other end – one of them a lovely yorker, the other grabbed impressively by Giordy at backward point.

With one wicket left, they still need 46. We can smell the win, taste the beers, feel the shower water on our parched naked skin.

But then… we can’t. A few overs go by, the runs keep coming, and suddenly it’s alive again. Panic stations. Like Edgbaston in 2005, the game has shifted from being a done deal to being intriguing, then positively gripping, and then potentially lurching into catastrophe, the wheels threatening to come off.

Davies brings himself back on. The ball is smashed to Jacob Geraghty at cow corner. It sails in the air. Hangs for a moment. Comes down. Goes straight through his hands. Six runs. Similar vibes to that Simon Jones drop at third man. The next ball, another six. The target has gone down to single figures. It’s painful, maddening, but it’s also remarkable theatre. With the gorgeous May sun casting a dreamy golden hue across the DSG’s verdant pastures, we’re locked into a blockbuster finish.

Nicko comes on for his last over, and I get the sense it needs to happen now, or we’re done for. The next guy from this end is Nieboer — an absolute death knell. Keeping his cool, the lanky Australian trundles in and hits the set batter’s pad. It’s probably going down leg. Nonetheless we scream like banshees at the umpire. He gives it, very much in keeping with today’s pattern. We’ve done it. We’ve bloody won. We mob each other; Giordy celebrates so hard he injures himself.

Butlin, clearly turned on by the win, wants me in the shower immediately. I tell him to wait for the other game to finish, for a bigger shower. I’m very keen for Yanni Baveas to be involved. I try to get Simon Crane on board, but he wants none of it, because, he says, there’s no way he’d be able to control himself.

Eventually, we have a strong 6-a-side shower team: Butlin, Nieboer, Damon Greeney, Britto, Robert Mead, Yanni — all of us enjoying beers, enjoying each other’s company, all of us agreeing that this, not the cricket, is in fact what we really came for.

And as I sit here on this gloomy Monday, at my desk, no shower partners to be seen, it is indeed moments like that one making their way up through the memory fog; not runs, not even that sensation of finally getting the win, after it looked like we’d well and truly shat our own bed — but simply being with the boys, sometimes dressed and sometimes not, at the place we call home.