An absolute cracker of a game at the DSG saw what can only be described as an absolute nailbiter, at 2am on the night before a deluge of rain and thunderstorms lit up the sky as the heavens opened leaving the wicket at Burbage Road soggy and muddy. With overcast conditions captain Tom Glynn-Jones and WC park skipper stroll out to middle for the toss WC skipper wins the toss and surprisingly elects to bat which seemed a strange decision, but with their full team having not turned up on time kind of made sense.

Ploughmans opened the bowling with the handsome combo off Grayzerr and Callum , and what can only be described as the tightest of tightest bowling the oppo struggled to get any runs on the board in the first 10 overs and inevitable the breakthrough came with a nice ball from Callum caught well by Harry Edmonds going low to his right. They were pottering on quite slowly at about 30-1 off the 15th over when their batsmen started opening up his shots and with BEEESLEY brought on to bowl some lovely flight tempted him into a big shot, the ball screams in the air for ages AGW running off the boundary, Callum also racing in from square leg and loud call from AGW avoided a mid-air collision, as AGW catches a great one low. Big breakthrough as the batsmen was on 19 and opening up his arms. Beesley then followed up with another smart wicket and we reduced them to 43-3. Another breakthrough before drinks bowled Grayzer with a very sharp catch at slip by Britto had us feeling bullish with oppo around 50-4.

After drinks and same again the bowling is tight a good spell by Spencer keeps the runs dried up and then on comes Ean Smith with a brilliant wicket bowling some absolute darts. Harry Bray and Jon Ryves also come with some good tight bowling, Bray bags himself a wicket and oppo finish on 119-6 after some big hitting from their number 8 bat.

After Tea we feel bullish on chasing 120 but the wicket is getting even worse, and thunderstorms can be heard behind us so wanting to get on with it Opening Bat AGW and Ean get after the task. AGW hits a couple decent shots and races to 9 off 6 but some good bowling then saw him back in the Pavillion. At the end Ean is holding the fort and really frustrating the bowling. In comes Harry Bray, Ean and Harry stabilise and form a nice partnership. The bowling is good from oppo and so is their fielding they are racing around the field to cut off boundaries. We struggle to get many runs between overs 10-20 and crucially still have the wickets in hand.

Then commences the ensuing drama tense thriller on 40-1 and looking comfy , Bray departs on a well worked 17 runs and in a crazy 3 overs we quickly lose Edmonds, Britto and Ryves to suddenly find ourselves 50-5. The oppo are salivating and smelling the win, I was always confident as we had a long batting tail but with wickets tumbling and us also falling below the run rate it started getting tense.

Cometh the hour cometh the Spencer, Spence goes full assault and hit some beautifully played shots to race away to 30 off 11 with some excellent 6’s and 4’s you can see the Oppo’s heads drop and in a 2 over spell we climbed to 85-5 but still lots of work to be done as the wicket continued to deteriorate. We then lose spencer and Ean (who batted brilliant and was the glue of our innings) and at the crease we have Callum and Grayzer at around 93-7 still work to be done and the bowling continued to be tight. Then suddenly with the runs drying up we only have 7 overs left.

STEP UP THE REAL HERO OF THE DAY their WK’s Helmet. Bowler bowls it quite wide their keeper does well to stop it racing to the boundary but in a very unfortunate turn of events it ricochets and hits this helmet. 5 PENALTY RUNS what a turn of events and much needed runs, up to that point helmet had a quiet game but he really stepped up when it counted. Getting past the 100 mark was greeted with great cheers but still a pesky 20 runs to get and Callum and Grayzer batted sensible to see it off with 2 overs to spare, a win by the finest of margins and just in team before the heavens opened. Ploughmans win by 3 wickets and an excellent rainbow greets us for a wholesome team pic to remember this tense thriller.

Great Game Chaps Plough on.
Man of the match – Helmet

Match Report Written by Alex GW