Alas, as the hour turned one, the odds of seeing even the second half seemed slim, as only 3 members of the opposition, who had chosen to bowl first, were at the ground, one of whom was Vibes. After the other Plough team at the DSG broke for drinks, the oppo finally got their full 10 to the field and play began.

The batting was opened by Sean McGurn and Baveas, while the bowling was opened by Vibes. A couple of boundaries off McGurn’s bat in the first over set a precedent for the rest of his day, the main focus of which at this point was not getting out to Carl. Unfortunately for Yanni, this proved a harder task than was manageable and, despite a wonderful, match winning innings the day before, he nicked off of Carl’s first legal delivery. To be fair, the one handed diving grab from the keeper was very impressive.

In then came Cosgrove, who held up the other end wonderfully for McGurn to really get into his stride. He was sending balls so far that the boundary looked like a Juniors’. The oppo were very chirpy in the field; a personal highlight for me was a violent and solitary appeal from deep point for an I-don’t-even-know-what-he-could-possibly-have-been-appealing-for about a ball about a meter down leg. Despite the chirpy fielding, or maybe because of, the partnership was building with the boundaries totting up and soon the Plough had 50 on the board. Unfortunately, Cossy was bowled and sent back to the pavilion after seeing off the new ball. In then came Rob Mead, who continued Cossy’s precedent of holding up the other end while McGurn knocked up the runs, but also knocked a very stylish couple of boundaries and, within no time, the 100 was up.

Again, rather unfortunately, Mead nicked off and was caught by the oppo keeper, who looked very sharp all day. In came Edmonds, right about the time McGurn knocked one clean over the nursery. The Plough on the side felt rather optimistic, with Edmonds and McGurn at the wicket, both bats capable of big things. These two have batted together many a time and have almost inconceivable averages - what could go wrong? Well, as an insider has rather insistently requested is recorded in this report, for posterity’s sake, McGurn had a momentary lapse of communicatory ability.

After comfortably making a single, McGurn (as our insider has declared) failed to call through the second, but ran anyway and Edmonds, about a meter out of the crease, was run out, in such a manner that all but the oppo umpire (as we will hear later) would be compelled to give out. Despite this momentary breakdown of communication, as even our insider would admit, it’s hard to begrudge McGurn anything when he knocked 155 retired injured. It was magnificent to watch, the ball was pumped everywhere and I think now Sean is well on his way to the fastest Plough 2000.

With McGurn and Edmonds back on the side, Rahul and Sarfraz took to the wicket. Unfortunately, Sarfraz caught a blinding ball of the oppo’s Spencer and was bowled for a duck (nothing wrong with a duck - I should know). Similarly, NT struggled to get off the mark and was caught behind for just one. Now firmly into the tail, it was their time to wag. Elmo and Rahul knocked the ball about with some sexy batting. A few boundaries later and another 30 odd added to the total, the Plough finished up on 241 all out.

Normally, we would adjourn for a well needed tea, at this point, but given the promise of football at 5, we pushed straight through and took to the field. The bowling was opened by Giordy and Sarfraz in an excellent display of control and power. Giordy, as he has been doing all season, bowled with skill and restraint, hammering his line and length rather than chasing the wickets he is oh so fond of.

His patience and skill won out, though, as he picked up a lovely couple of wickets while smothering the run rate. The same was true for the bowling of Sarfraz. Spence, from the sidelines had remarked that he has 15k followers and the onlooking Plough soon understood why. The first couple of balls bowled were beautiful spin, right in the block hole, followed up by a seam up ball about as fast as is conceivable off a 3 step run-up. This variability of pace and technique proved too much for the oppo and another couple of wickets fell, leaving the plough feeling in a very strong position as they retired for tea, coincidentally in time for the start of the England match.

After watching Slovakia score, the Plough abandoned their plans to watch the first half to completion and took to the field in disgust. Next to bowl were Elmo and Yates, one of whom had a wonderful day, one of whom (after some rather excessive birthday celebrations) was struggling to stay upright. Elmo bowled wonderfully, hitting length, line and stifling the oppo; Yates, on the other hand, rather struggled to pitch it anywhere - I think the less said the better, but I was glad I didn’t yak on the wicket. I think at this point it might be appropriate to digress about the length of the match.

Given the overs were reduced to 35, it is almost unbelievable how long the match went on for - forever. Even the onlooking Plough, whose other game had finished before our tea, were chorusing ‘get the **** on with it’ from the side. It’s hard to place quite what took so long, but my money is probably on the rather ritualistic setting up of the oppo bats between each ball.

It is probably now time to mention the amazing bounce and turn Elmo was able to achieve, so deceptive in fact that the wicket keeper Mead wore one to the bridge of the nose. Obviously it was horrible to watch and retrospectively one can apply a slightly different lens to the occasion knowing Rob is okay. Nevertheless, one cannot help but have a certain admiration for a man who was more concerned about not getting the copious amount of blood coming from his nose on his whites than the copious amount of blood coming from his nose. With a blood injury to the keeper, Yanni stepped in and allowed the game to continue.

Now, Rahul and Niraj took to up the bowling mantle with yet more restrained and powerful bowling. Both were excellent and it was a tough time to come in, not just in the course of the game but actually in the day - it was 7:30pm. Now, not that it is in the spirit of the game to harp on about dodgy umpiring decisions, which could have gone either way, but I feel safe to do so, since these really could have gone only one way (or so I would have believed until I saw them go the other). The first was a run out the oppo ump, from safely behind the wickets, deemed fit not to give out despite the bat being about as far out of the crease as Edmonds was earlier in the game (very, very far).

The next was a beautifully LBW from skip Rahul, who caught the oppo bat on centre stump on his foot - as plum as can be - but was deemed not out because the ball was allegedly going down leg. Now, I am genuinely not sure quite what Rahul bowls - is it seam, is it spin (???), either was it’s bloody lovely to watch, but I highly doubt he has the ability to turn it at 90 degrees, which is essentially what would have been required for this ball to miss the stumps. Fortunately, this was rather poetically followed up by almost the exact same ball the next delivery and the bat was sent to the pavilion for LBW - so all's well that ends well. Despite the best efforts of the Plough in the field and the opening bowlers returning to try and restrict the last from overs, the oppo chased down Plough's score in the last few overs.

Match report from Dave Yates