Skippered by AJ Prasad who as he went to the middle proudly exclaiming ‘I’ve not lost a toss this season’. You can all guess what happened next. And to steal a bit of Pritu’s beautifully written match report from last week- Toss lost. Bowl first. Game on.

Full disclosure: if you are expecting anything remotely close to the quality of reports written by Nibbles or Pretty boy then you will bitterly disappointed. A similar disappointment was etched all over AJ’s face when the changing rooms and facilities looked nothing like Lords Pavillon which he is now fully accustomed to.

We opened the bowling with Damo and Giordy. Both bowled good lines but were let down by substandard fielding and dropped catches (myself included) and their opener went on to make a quick fire 50 before retiring, much to my relief.

Giordy took a crucial wicket to get rid of the other opener thanks to Iskander taking a smart catch at gully. Aman Jain came on as first change and bowled exceptionally well. With the pressure building the oppo batsmen went fishing out side off stump and in quick succession 2 of them snicked off with the forever reliable Leon Parks behind the stumps completing the formalities. Shout out to Leon who kept brilliantly, saving 25-30ish runs by scrambling down the leg side and making outrageous takes look straight forward.

Elmo from the other end brought some much needed control before getting his just reward and trapping their number 5 LBW.

JJ came on to replace Aman and the 2 leggies bowled superbly in tandem. JJ completely bamboozling their number 4 with a quality googly sending the bails flying. Aman then returned for his second spell and picked up where he left off clean bowling one and inducing a false shot from another which was calmly caught by Bharat. At the death giordy again picked up another with the batter chipping one to square leg with Aman taking a sharp catch. This brought up Giordy’s 50th wicket for the plough, a well deserved milestone. Also a great performance by Aman finishing with 4 wickets and a catch to his name! Oppo finished on 248-9, a gettable total on a decent deck like this as AJ emphasised during tea.

And so it begins….Prasball.

We opened up with Iskander and Leon who set a solid foundation. Both looked composed at the crease and saw off the opening bowlers without much trouble whilst keeping the scoreboard ticking over nicely. Against the run of play Leon was incredibly unlucky to middle one straight back to the bowler who somehow caught it during this follow through. Not so long after Iskander was unlucky to play the ball onto his pad which then went on to cannon into leg stump bring JJ to the crease. Unfortunately a flurry of quick wickets saw the plough 5 down for 98 with Aman and JJ battling away. They put on a huge 6 wicket partnership with both of them smacking it to all parts and when Aman fell for an impressive 39 they had taken us to 204-6. An incredible 106 run partnership in just 10 overs! JJ who was magnificent, held the innings together and with support from Elmo continued to take the bowlers to sword.

With us needing 34 of 4 overs JJ could not afford to take his foot off the pedal and eventually was caught by a decent catch at backward point. He finished with a stunning 80 off 51 balls with both the oopo and plough clapping him off the field. Elmo, Damo and Giordy all put up resistance but unfortunately we fell 21 runs short.

This one stung a little as we came close against a very good team. However, Im sure I was in a lecture once that mentioned the treatment for disappointing loss is a weekend in Malta playing cricket with your mates in the glorious sunshine.

Im glad to report most of you have picked up your prescriptions and no doubt you will enjoy the medicine! Plough On!

Match report from Hussain Selmi (Dr. Merch)