We didn’t know it was going to be one of those days when we rocked up at the DSG on the day with the best weather so far this season. New skipper Hockings was fretting at the balance of his side.

Some late drop-outs had left us with only 10 players, and a line-up that looked strong in batting (on paper) but with almost no bowlers. Fortunately, we batted first, so that wasn’t a problem we had to deal with just yet.

They had one opening bowler who was taller than Viberg. With a release point somewhere over 3 metres in the air, it perhaps should have been predicted that he would get some bounce out of the pitch, but it still seemed to surprise Cosgrove who top edged to point. That brought in McGurn, off the back of his 130 the day before. He swung and missed a lot, but also crashed a lot of boundaries. He put together a busy little 50 partnership with Boughton before Boughton was out caught.

In came the first of the notable performances. Nilen Patel is a friend of AGW who hadn’t played for 16 years. The last time he played was for Dulwich College 1st XI, so probably knew what he was doing, and so it proved. He was all big strides and high elbows, and looked much classier than McGurn. After McGurn dodged a jug, holing out for 48 off 36 balls, Patel stroked a lovely straight six and we all though he was getting back in the zone, but then he was out right after. But that is not the end of his story today.

The innings then stalled a bit as we lost more wickets and the runs dried up, until Goel came in and gave us back some impetus with a quick-fire 19 before Hockings came in and blasted 20 off 19 to take us up to 189/8 from our 40. That was a bit less than it could have been after our good start, but gave us something to play with.

And then the fun started. We opened, of course, with Greeney, who did Greeney things – put the ball on the spot, beat the bat repeatedly, and really should have got wicket. He did have one tight LBW shout turned down, and McGurn nearly started a fight because he thought the umpire was looking at his phone.

At the other end, who else would you choose but the man who hadn’t played for 16 years? And Hockings was right to do so. Patel bowled very well, and picked up 3 wickets, including a nicely-taken caught and bowled.

Hockings then brought Goel on, who did Goel things – made the batters look like they didn’t have a clue. After a while, the batters realised that not being able to lay a bat on the ball wasn’t getting them anywhere, so decided to just try and swing at everything. Somehow, the balls ended up falling just out of reach every time. Eventually Sandeep decided that just bowling ripping leg breaks wasn’t working, so put in a fast, straight one which cleaned up their righthander (who ended up top-scoring) the ball before tea.

At that stage, we felt we were well in the game, but we weren’t sure what would happen next. What happened next was Crane stepped up. At the start of the game, he had been unsure if he would be able to bowl – he is still injured, and even without that, it meant he hadn’t bowled for several months. Somehow, Hockings persuaded him to try an over or two to see how it went. After a shaky opening over, he found his length and bowled a superb spell, bowling his eight overs straight through (I hope he can still walk now). It was a superb spell, mixing toe-crushing yorkers with balls that hooped past the outside edge. Even in the eighth over, he was still pinging the ball into Mead’s chest behind the stumps. He deserved more than his single wicket.

Then came another of AGW’s mates, Jermaine Tudor, who had been persuaded to come along and could only make it after we had started fielding. His first over was fast and straight, and should have got a wicket after Hockings had plucked a miraculous catch out of the air but couldn’t quite hold on. He did pick up a wicket in his third over, knocking over the number 8’s stumps, which still kept us thinking we might pull off a win.

The final person to step up was McGurn. Not content with scoring 178 runs in the weekend, he decided that now was a good a time as any to bowl his first ball for the Plough. He bowled a tidy spell of three overs, including only the second maiden of the innings, and wicket from a great low catch by Hockings at mid on.

In the end, though, we didn’t have enough runs on the board, and we lost by 3 wickets with 3 overs left. But some great performances kept us in the match right to the end, and almost gave Hockings a victory in his first match as skipper.

Match report from Andrew Cosgrove