Being fresh from the wrong sort of double header (a big night out on both Friday and Saturday), Sunday came around and I dragged myself out of bed to make my way to an away day not too far from the DSG.

I arrived at the lovely ground that is famously known within the Plough as Giordy Diangienda’s former stomping ground, Streatham and Marlborough.

What was instantly noticeable upon arrival was that the pitch prepared was one of the furthest strips on the square to the side of the clubhouse, and what this meant was that we had one very small boundary, and one that was so ridiculously large that I with my gammy hamstrings actually managed to run a 4 from a shot that didn’t reach the ropes.

Our captain for the day was Plough stalwart Steve Britto, who recently became the first to play 500 games for the club.

Britto headed out for the toss and then walked back towards us with a cheeky smile on his face. He gave us the trademark hand signal to indicate that we were batting and Sean McGurn jumped around the place with joy. An excellent toss to win.

With a Plough batting line stacked with big run scorers all oozing with form, there was a feeling in the air that a big score was on the cards here.

Skipper Britto was partnered by regular opener and run scoring machine, Sean McGurn, who both walked out to the middle eyeing up yet another individual milestone for themselves. Britto's milestone being 12,000 runs, and McGurn’s being 1,000 runs for the season (again). They asked which end S&M would be opening up from, to which the answer was “we don’t know yet.” TGJ as chief scorer then asked for the first bowlers name and he received the exact same response. Everything was a mystery at this point.

Both openers began their innings showing a bit of respect to the opening bowlers for the first few overs, looking comfortable at the crease and showing minimal signs that an early wicket could be on the cards. But it didn’t take too long before McGurn started sending any full length deliveries back over the bowlers head, crashing into the sight screens. His biggest shot of the day was one that went high into the top of the tree that overlooked the clubhouse.

The fielders tried to keep it positive with the classic “we don’t mind that” following one of the many boundaries from these two, but this tone quickly changed as Ollie Tennant at square leg umpire soon heard one of them mutter to themselves “this could be a long afternoon”.

Within quick successions both batsmen reached their impressive milestones and were applauded by the rest of us, whilst we all just sat there enjoying an impressive display of batting. Sean was soon applauded once again as he reached his 50, and the opening stand between them reached 117 before Britto was the first to fall.

The next wicket partnership was 0 as Sean fell shortly after this, with what he considered the best timed shot he’d played throughout his innings, but managed to guide this straight into the big gully’s hands who got down and took an impressive low catch.

Laney didn’t get off to his usual flying starts and was bowled, meaning that 117-0 had soon become 132-3. Unfortunately for S&M, the two men next at the crease are pretty good at hitting the ball and know exactly how to take advantage of a short boundary. This was none other than Edmonds and Tunnacliffe, who famously put on a record breaking partnership last season where they both made a ton in a game where we scored over 270 and somehow still lost by about 70 runs.

It took them a few dot balls each to get their eyes in, and then once they were off the mark, the usual firework display from these two begun. Boundaries were coming harder and faster, and then the captain decides to make a change of bowling. This decision was to bring on someone slow and loopy from the end where Harry Edmonds was hitting to the short boundary. BIG MISTAKE.

Harry shows absolutely no mercy and the poor man’s first over gets sent for a whopping 27 runs. He takes another over and he’s given a blow with figures of 0-45.

When the fielders had to start regularly searching in the bushes for the ball, Lane decided to get ahead of the game and supply them with about 4 spare balls on standby. I’m not sure how they took this one.

This ruthless display of power hitting around the ground continued from them both and then S&M decided to bring the openers back on. Edmonds then found himself bowled for 63 as he continued destructively swinging for the fences. He only faced 35 balls and the first 6 of these were dots.

With the platform well and truly set and more batting to come all the way down the order, wickets were no concern and all anyone had in mind from here was more runs. The S&M umpire gave no lenience to his teams bowlers when it came to no balls, and when Ollie Tenant got his bat on a beamer that went high in the air and into someone's hands, it somehow didn’t cross his mind to look at the umpires signal. He just ran straight back towards the clubhouse and had to be sent back to the crease.

After then losing his wicket to a legitimate delivery, Tom Glynne-Jones joined Big Tuna for the runs party, who played some lovely strokes to add a decent 36* to the runs total. Tuna unfortunately didn’t make the ton he was eyeing up and was caught for 84.

With the rest of the tail including myself all getting bowled by the young lad who finished the innings with a five-for, we actually found ourselves all out with one ball remaining in the innings, for a grand total of 341.

We sat down for the eagerly anticipated tea that was rumoured to be a chicken tikka dish, which had led the team to decide on going out for a curry in Brixton after the game. The chicken tikka rumours were false but it was an excellent spread of hot cooked food that was thoroughly enjoyed by us all.

A message in the chat from Spence that our score was only 1 run away from our biggest ever total somehow actually managed to make us feel disappointed to miss out on a record breaking opportunity, but I guess we couldn’t complain too much with what we’d achieved out there.

So it was time to start the second innings where Oscar and myself kicked things off with the ball. It was a traditional frustrating opening spell where we continued to beat the bat just outside off stump, and suffered the occasional edge or back foot slap into the gaps.

The first wicket came when one of the openers hit it into a sizeable gap in front of him and called for the single, but the non striker just didn’t fancy it and clearly rated McGurns arm and athleticism more than anyone else. So he just walked back towards the clubhouse looking very unimpressed. They might have even been able to run 2 there if I’m honest.

Britto brought on some spin with TGJ at one end and Tunnacliffe from the other. The change was a good one as they continued to stack up the dot balls, and Glynne-Jones took out the other opener with an LBW in his second over. A very strong and convincing appeal from him may I add.

Big Tuna just continued to dip and bounce the ball past the bat nearly every delivery, seeing back to back maidens but without the reward of a wicket. His 5 over spell conceded just 10 runs, and at the other end Glynn-Jones added another wicket to his already impressive tally for the season.

From this point on Britto regularly switched it up between the bowlers, with short spells usually consisting of 2-3 overs. This included the introduction of Richard James into the attack, who also impressed with 2 wickets across 2 spells.

We had a bit of a wake up call when the big hitter at number 5 decided to start thumping a few balls even further than our boys did, one of them flying miles over the club house might have actually landed at the DSG.

But how this guy lost his wicket was possibly even more impressive. Out of nowhere he just pulls off a ridiculous KP style switch hit against Richard that he actually timed really well, but found himself very unlucky that Theo Burns ran and slid to take a fantastic catch. A very strong redemption from one he’d put down just a few balls earlier.

The bowling changes became more regular and we all saw a change of ends to shake things up. This worked very well for the spinners as Big Tuna finally picked up a wicket, whilst TGJ took another two and finished with 4 for the day. A fantastic day out all round for him.

Further changes saw a bowling debut from Theo Burns, and the dream came true as his one over saw him take his first wicket for the Plough, outstanding scenes.

On the other side, Oscar and I were now onto our third spells and still failed to pick any wickets up for ourselves, and we just got more and more frustrated by this.

But here’s where the scenes got even bigger. There’s one wicket needed for the win and the next bowling change also saw a change of wicketkeeper. Harry Edmonds, eager to finally have a bowl for the Plough, quickly stripped off his keeping gear and handed the gloves over to Tom Lane for the final few overs, and he stepped up with the ball in hand.

He jogs up and bowls his first delivery, and its skied into the air towards superstar all-rounder George Tunnacliffe… it can’t be can it?

The answer is NO! As he’s put the catch down. The absolute dream has been spoiled by the most unlikely of suspects. Edmonds is distraught.

He bowls 4 more balls and then he steps up for his final delivery of his one over… and it’s bowled!!!

For the second time we have a first Plough wicket within their first over for the Plough. Truly unbelievable. Me and Oscar can barely even look at anyone else at this point.

So that wraps up a magnificent game that will go down in the Plough history books for many reasons. I can’t report on how the curry was as I think I was the only member of the team not to join (which I rightfully took a lot of abuse for). It was definitely the right decision as I was passed out asleep within 5 minutes of getting home.

Match report written by Callum Daley