There are some days that you just know. It’s in the air, it snakes into your lungs, it digs itself under your nails and you feel it in your teeth. It’s what the canniest of the Native Americans must have felt, seeing the bows of Spanish ships rise over the horizon that separated them from the plagues of Europe; it’s what that one engineer on the Titanic must have felt when he counted the number of lifeboats, and saw that the maths simply did not sit right; it’s how they felt on the Challenger when it started rattling.

There are some days that you know it’s going to be a Bad Day.

If you look up the word ‘village’ in the dictionary, you may expect to find a picture of Ides Hill cricket ground, but if that is what you expected, you clearly do not know how dictionaries work. Instead, you will find the definition of the word ‘village’, which is, in fact, how dictionaries work, and indeed, in fact, what Ides Hill is, to its very core.

Two corners of the ground sweep up alarmingly, the pitch is camouflaged into the rest of the outfield in a way that would make members of the Vietcong take notes, and the boundaries are roughly thirty yards from the pitch. There are a list of house rules in the pavilion: a) hitting the clubhouse on the full does not constitute a six, but rather you must clear the clubhouse (and subsequent hedge behind it) to be awarded a six b) the ball reaching the road on the full is not a six, but the ball must clear the extra seven inches of tarmac to the other side of the road to be considered a six c) you must retire after 50. You look at the ground, and the rules, and the fact that the oppo don’t even want to toss, but would rather just send you in, and you feel that sticky, sickly, gummy feeling in the pit of your stomach.

It’s going to be a Bad Day.

Cosgrove walks out to open. He faces ball after ball, carefully, diligently, cautiously. Their opening bowlers are bowling well at him— consistent line and length at one end, and accurate, darting off spin at the other— and he is equal to it. There is one ball that he strides out, and defends, full face of the bat, and you watch it and you think, yes, this is the coaching manual. And then, after all the hard work, and the grit, he does what every good batsman does and cashes in on the bad ball. Short, outside off, rising. He gets there, he uppercuts, it’s the right shot. But the ball doesn’t quite have the height, and the fielder jumps just right, and the ball hits the palm hard enough that it doesn’t jiggle, and Cosgrove is out, and the Bad Day has begun.

Harry Bray’s second ball is a delight to watch. It’s a short forward press, and then he just drops the bat on it. There is no wasted movement, there is just balance and wrists, and easy, languid timing, and there’s four runs added to the board. He follows it up by guiding one through third man. Four again. It’s Joe Root with arms tats, it’s Hull’s slightly shorter answer to Zac Crawley. Admission to the Engine Room Whatsapp chat is beckoning, and isn’t cricket the best game in the world? And then the spinner arcs one into leg stump, and it’s OK, because it’s missing, but then it’s hitting the inside of his bat, and then it’s hitting his pad, and then it’s hitting the stumps, and then yeah, it’s a Bad Day.

And somehow, it gets worse. The opening bowlers come off, and you realise that Ides Hill might struggle to dominate the Azerbaijan Blind Cricket U10s. It’s bowlers bowling at a shade above 20mph, full tosses, and wides that evoke Harmison for that Ashes opening ball (minus the pace, the swing, the height, the release or the general feeling that this is an aberration). You look at a team like the Plough, and the talent studded through it, and you think, surely this is going to be a mauling. But you could also put Magnus Carlsen in a room with a hyena and a chessboard, and for everything he knows about the Queen’s Gambit and the Sicilian defence, it doesn’t matter, because the hyena will gnaw his arm off and shit on the chessboard.

Theo Burns is out without scoring. Leo Nieboer doesn’t quite middle it, and slots it down deep square leg’s throat first ball. Benny is bowled by a ball that he would, were this nets, send on a one way trip to the centre of Kabul. Niraj is plumb. And of course there’s me. There are times that you watch me bat and you might wonder whether I would genuinely bat better if you gently slid a 15 inch needle through the corner of my eye, delicately into my frontal lobe, and gave the needle a tap with the end of a Range Rover Sport travelling at 40mph over the Autobahn speed limit. The answer is, for anyone checking, a definite yes.

My batting today was starkly reminiscent of Glenn Maxwell, but not the Maxwell that scored 200 off one good leg against Afghanistan in a must win match, but rather the Maxwell who shaped to play a cut shot in the Big Bash, watched the ball arrive right in the arc for hitting a cut shot, and then wondered whether it would be funnier to watch the ball hit the stumps.

But in the midst of the stupidity and the recklessness and the lack of killer instinct, there were two guys out there who were having a different game. Because if what happened to the rest of us was stupid or bad luck, it is worth remembering that maybe you create the luck you deserve.

Maybe you create it through hard work, and nets, and asking questions, and trying to bring new shots to your game, and playing week after week and believing that you can get better. Maybe, like Ean Smith, you buy that little bit of luck in someone dropping a dolly off you, for the patience that you showed in seeing off the good bowlers, and nudging the singles, and waiting for the dross, and keeping your head down, and your head on, and playing the game. Maybe, like Leon Parks, you deserve it for reining in your game, and not letting your ego beat you, and being sensible and picking the gaps, and turning it around corners and playing with enthusiasm. These two guys, in the middle of a grandiose clusterfuck of epic proportions, played and played and played, and for that, they deserved the applause when they walked off, both not out, both unbeaten, unbowed, unbent. Twin fifties. Ean’s first, but not his last. Just another one to add to the list for Leon.

The Plough, almost solely down to these two men, have 163 on the board.

Niraj and Liam start the bowling innings, and it’s immediately relentless pressure. It’s lines, and channels and areas. You wonder where the runs are going to come from, because there isn’t a run off the bat till the third over. Leo and I, stood at mid off and mid on, consider if there is a realistic chance that Niraj might get bored of bowing 18 balls in a row on the exact same spot, but when he ask him this, as he glides back to start another delivery, he simply grins, shrugs, and bowls another one about the width of a 1p piece away from the other 18. Grayzer at the other end, is making the ball talk dirty, and as is always the case with good dirty talk, eventually something explodes. Three overs in, and he already has three wickets. Niraj is unlucky, and for all his hard work and merciless perseverance, has no wickets to show for it.

And now, 45 overs in to this godforsaken day, the tables start to turn, and both the opening bowlers are taken off, and Ides Hill start to get that same feeling that the British Raj did some time in 1947, or Marie Antionette did a few days after eating cake when she really shouldn’t have, and they start to wonder if it is, in fact, a really Bad Day. Because how can you not when you’ve seen off Liam and Niraj, and you look up, and it’s Viberg bowling mathematically improbable shapes, and Benny bowling with the sort of consistency where you consider asking the match referee whether he’s got a remote control for the ball.

Benny is like a white Mohammed Asif; he’s enjoying himself so much that he’s stopped caring about getting wickets, but has gone one level above and is playing for the set up. He’s targeted their big no.5 bat, and is weaving a web around him, all sticky silk and quick ones, floaters and arm balls. The wicket he does get, the other guy, almost feels incidental. The first change Viking at the other end, on the other hand, is on a hattrick. There is no repeat of Ed Beasley here, but he’s put the fear of Odin in them by the time that he’s done. There will come a day when Carl gets a hattrick, and on the back of this, it’s clear that it’s going to be sooner rather than later. And silently, quietly, with none of the spotlight, Leon Parks takes his 75th catch with the gloves. Much like his batting, it’s smart, efficient, subtle stuff, and it’s one of the things that is keeping this team in the game. In the middle of all of this, it is worth briefly highlighting Theo. Quick across the turf, he’s saving runs every time the ball gets pulled in his direction, and they’ve completely stopped chancing a run against his arm.

Leo Nieboer joins the party with the ball, and what a treat it is. When people talk about someone playing four dimensional chess, they are talking about Leo, because this man is literally bringing in the fourth dimension, which is the sun. How many other bowlers can think outside of the box like that? How many bowlers are accounting for the azimuth angle of the sun when they bowl? How many people are taking into account the number of days from the summer solstice when they rip their offies? How many are going for just one run off their first over?

For all of this, the Plough still only put up 163, which means when Niraj and Liam come back on, the game is still on for Ides Hill. Grayzer bowls like he never stopped his first spell. It’s just as miserly, just as accurate, just as difficult to lay a bat on. The pressure cranks up a notch, and there must be some soft signal from the pavilion, and the batsmen decide to go. Niraj’s penultimate over goes for eight. Liam comes back, and goes for six.

It’s 24 required off the last over. Someone, somewhere, suggests that this is Carlos Brathwaite territory. Niraj’s first ball is the perfect ball: it’s full and sharp and at the base of the stumps. But there is just enough bat on it, and the boundaries are just thirty something yards. Four. The second ball is full, it’s a good length, but this late in the game, it’s a slot ball, and it’s gone. Four. The third ball is too similar, maybe the metronome is working against him, and the batsman is in, and maybe this is the game, and the ball goes and goes and goes. Six.
10 off 3. Maybe this is a Bad Day.

Niraj, after 70 overs, after 34 overs in the field, at the end of the game, with all of this pressure, doesn’t wilt. Somehow, he gets quicker. The fourth ball is noticeably zippier, it hits the deck and just skids and the batsman is so late on it. Dot.
10 off 2. Boundaries required.

And there it is, another dot. This is what the game is all about. Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Remember the name. Pressure is for tyres.

Final ball.

Wicket.

Because remember, when you come in and you work selflessly, and you bowl in the right area again and again and again, and you tighten the screws all game, and when it comes to crunch time, you find the extra reserve to bowl a yard quicker, maybe you do just buy yourself a little bit of luck, and finally get the wicket you’ve deserved all game.

Maybe today is a Good Day.

Match report from Prithu Pretty Boy Banerjee