He said that he never scores runs on Bel Air. This seemed improbable – McGurn scores runs everywhere – and further probing revealed that what me meant was his highest score on Bel Air is ‘only’ 96, whereas he has scored tons on all of the other pitches at the DSG. So there you have it, 96 is no runs in McGurnWorld (spoiler: his highest score on Bel Air is still 96).

Badgers lost the toss, so Parks opted to bat. The Badgers’ opening bowlers were pretty good, getting lots of swing: one moving it away, the other moving it in. Cosgrove soon was beaten by a ball that jagged in sharply and got a bit of bounce, finding its way onto the stumps via gloves. McGurn didn’t last much longer, chasing a ball that would have been called wide had he not got enough of a toe-end on it to guide it to the keeper.

Ainslie and Parks put together a patient 44-run partnership, batting in testing conditions. The change bowlers were also good, both left-arm medium pace. When Ainslie was caught, Burns took over his supporting role.

At the other end, Burns kept batting. He rode his luck, being dropped off a dolly, and also surviving an enthusiastic caught-behind appeal where apparently everyone on the field thought he was out except for him and Umpire Greeney. He was pushing on towards his maiden Plough 50, and we were all cheering him on, but sadly he was bowled for 49.

Haque launched his first ball for 6, took a 1 off the next and ended up on strike for the last ball of the innings. We needed 6 to reach 200, but he couldn’t get enough elevation on it and only got 4. He finished on a useful 11 off 3 balls, and we finished on 198. We felt that was going to be pretty defendable. Parks pointed out that they had bowled 21 wides, so if we could cut those out we would be a long way towards winning.

Greeney and Nair opened up, and bowled tidily but without getting the initial breakthrough. Badgers had put on 36 before Greeney induced an edge which drew an outrageous catch from McGurn at slip, one-handed to his right and with the ball almost behind him. One brought three, with one bat then cutting Greeney to Ainslie at point, and Nair also picking one up from a catch by Haque. 36/0 had become 38/3.
Another little partnership developed which was broken by Carson with a cool boundary catch from Stanley.

Greeney bowled all his 8 on the trot, and was no doubt looking forward to a rest at fine leg, but seemed to then have to field every other ball.
After Greeney came off, it didn’t get any easier for the batters, as Haque replaced him. His first ball brought that sight we all love, the bewildered batter looking back to see his middle stump pegged back as he tried to work out how the ball had ended up there. Haque quickly picked up another wicket, with a sharp catch from McGurn at slip.

At 79/6 we thought we were well in the game, but as the number 8, Hash, walked out McGurn said ‘he looks like he can hit it’. His first ball he walloped over cow corner, into the trees, never to be seen again. He carried on like that, swinging across the line, peppering the boundary between long on and backward square leg, but mostly cow corner. The Haque-McGurn pairing accounted for the other batter, but that just brought in the number 9, the inswinging opening bowler. He batted very sensibly in support of Hash, and the pair got them to 180, so well in sight of the 199 target. But then Hash tried one big hit too many, against the returning Nair, and picked out Greeney on the boundary.
But still, it was still a very doable equation, it just needed some sensible batting. Unfortunately for them, they went for a tight second. It would have been a reasonable call, had Ainslie not fired the ball straight in over the top of the stumps, giving Parks plenty of time to calmly knock the bails off.

Stanley came on and finished off the innings with a cameo of 1.1-0-1-1 (with the run coming from a wide), and Ploughmans had won by 13 runs with 2.5 overs to spare. As several of us remarked, it was great to be in a tight Sunday game that we ended up coming out on top. And also, that we had started strongly but not let the game slide, and came back at the end of the innings to finish it off.

Match report from Andrew Cosgrove