Well… yes, and here we go again.

Finally, after what has felt like several lifetimes, during which I have gone through about four or five personalities — each one less desirable than the last — cricket has returned.

And what a day for it — one of those so-perfectly-sunny days that the early morning rays somehow manage to even pierce through fully closed blinds.

Unfortunately, after so many mornings of waking up and wishing for nothing more than a trip to the DSG for some good old crabbing across the crease and a bit of horseplay in the showers, I’m not feeling up to it today. Alex Gordon Walker invited me to the Oval the day before and now — having spent four straight hours in the sun, drinking steadily, with no hat or any kind of protection — I’m wallowing around in a quagmire of sunstroke. I can barely move. The possibility of involuntary defecation is very real.

Eventually, after much wriggling around and cursing, I decide to haul myself there and just kind of hope that doesn’t happen. I bring a spare pair of boxers, just in case.

The following is a rather jangled account of the day. Due to something of a chemical handicap, my accounting is somewhat scrambled. But thanks to some disjointed notes, with sporadic memory flashes, we have something of a chronology. To wit:

10:00

Walking past Megan’s in the Hamlet, in Dulwich Village, I spot a number of Plough outside: Sean McGurn, Greg Willis, Harry Edmonds, Lewis Wilby, Michael Ainslie, Chris Butlin. Greg tells me I missed out on a fine Shakshuka, and the idea makes my already twisted stomach churn and scream. I don’t want to think about wet tomatoey eggy stuff right now.

Everyone has something to say about my ubiquitous orange Sainsburys bag. Sean firmly believes it’s the same one, every time — this thing that never leaves my sight and in many ways is now my best friend, but which is actually just one from a large draw full of the f*ckers, any of whom could get grabbed at any time and subjected to whatever it is I have planned that day.

11:00

Now at the DSG, I’m literally staggered by the amount of Plough around me. They keep trickling round the corner and towards the benches, the number multiplying and multiplying like bacteria cells at the bottom of a drain. It’s gloriously overstimulating. Everywhere I look, there are faces I have missed dearly since September, along with faces I’ve never seen before. The DSG is humming. The sun bursts through. We are back.

Before the action starts, Club President Robert Cox unveils a commemorative bench for two departed Plough — Nasser Khan and Patrick Gledhill. It will live on a quiet part of the Hollies, he says, which in my view is perhaps the best place to be on a warm day like this.

Matt Spencer then explains the Rules of Engagement — all of it done in a friendly and clear manner — then tells everyone that, as soon as his whites are on, he’s their enemy. It’s time to play.

12:00

On the Remote pitch, it’s Willis Whackers vs Conjob’s Cows, but Willis himself is not playing after encountering some truly haunting head trauma on Thursday, when Benny Cobbett served Aman Jain a sumptuous half volley that was bludgeoned flush into the back of his head, the ball making a heinous clonk sound and Willis falling to the ground like he’d been taken out by a sniper.

Remarkably, there was no blood, nor any real sign of concussion, apart from a vague sense of confusion that may well have been there before. In any case, his doctor advised him not to play, so the onfield skippering is delegated to fellow Yorkshireman and all-round good guy Harry Edmonds. We are bowling first.

Conjob’s Cows make a blistering start. They have two proper heifers in Alex Jullienne and Iskandar Eaton opening the batting, and they’re creaming (genuinely accidental pun there) everything in sight. On this astro deck, with the grass so dry I’m thirsty just looking at it, there’s absolutely no room for error.

Meanwhile, on the Nursery pitch, as Ainslie’s Allsorts bat first against Rahul Nair’s Nairborne Strikers, we hear an apocalyptic eruption of noise. I turn around to see Chris Roden-Smith with his shirt off, swinging it above his head, as Sean McGurn leans over his bat in a pit of despair. He’s just nicked one to Yanni Baveas second ball. The boys are going berserk, limbs everywhere, screeching like banshees as Sean trudges off. 10 minutes in and Club Day already has a serious vibe about it.

13:00

Unfortunately for the Whackers, over on an ignored corner of the DSG, those vibes are decidedly rancid. I’ve seen more hope and energy at Stansted airport at 03:00. Eaton and Cakey have smoked their way to 50s and taken the Cows to 100-0 off 9 overs. Jahangir Sarfaraz comes in next and does nasty things to the ball. Duray Pretorius and Skipper Canelo also get involved. It’s like playing cards with a threshing machine, all of this: no matter what we throw at them, it comes back chewed to oblivion.

Looking over to the other pitch, Liam Grayzer is getting spanked everywhere. Champion Boss is moonballing the damn thing into a narcoleptic coma, over and over again. Even so, you can tell it’s more of a contest than what’s happening over here. The scoreboard looks normal — 130-4 off 15 overs, or something like that. (No scorecards from this day appear to have been recorded for posterity, perhaps instead thrown right onto Bad Jake's grill, which does make sense.)

Our scoreboard looks frightening. Even more frighteningly, I can see Giordy Diangienda walking over here with my girlfriend, Livia, and I shudder thinking about what deranged things he may be saying to this sweet Italian girl, here to watch her boyfriend strike at 40 in the flesh for the first time.

“Why are you standing there, now, mate?” Giordy barks at me. He’s already drunk.

“Because I was put here.”

“Whatever, bro.”

Some good bowling from Jay Patel, Angus Osbourne and Lewis Wilby gives us a handbrake, of sorts, but it’s been a brutal first 20 overs back in the dirt. We have dropped NINE catches, reminding me very acutely of the last game I played here, back on September 14, 2024, in a must-win league-deciding game against Epic CC that I still think about almost every day, where we dropped the same amount.

Wilby is not happy. He started the day reasonably calm, placid, looking forward to cricket. One hour later he’s a barking, fuming ball of frustration, that pure competitor spirit in no way dampened by having a child and living away from this concrete hellhole of a city we call home. Just a little scratch and, yep, there it is.

“He’s reminding me a bit of (Oli) Lonsdale,” Duray says to me.

“Head’s gone. All our heads are gone,” I reply.

Duray does that hyena-like laugh of his. “FULLY gone.”

We’re chasing 208.

To even have a chance, the Whackers need to whack hard, whack like they’ve never whacked before. It doesn’t start well. Ean Smith is run out in the third over, the score 8-1. Then Suri Poleboina, going for a single, rolls his ankle, and has to be carried off. Edmonds and Nieboer have much to do.

Well, Edmonds does. Nieboer merely nabs singles and watches from the other end, drooling, as Edmonds drives a hot spike through the right eye of Canelo’s attack — just decimating deliveries, including one flick off the pads for six so deliciously well-timed that I think about changing sports for good. But then even Nieboer gets in on the act, taking advantage of some rusty bowling from Duray, who then heads to deep square leg and starts flirting with Nieboer's girlfriend, and I can just tell it’s working. I guess, if you wanna really cuck the king, you gotta kill the king, otherwise he’ll just cuck you right back with a damn glazed cherry on top.

We’re at around 100-1 off 10 overs, actually with the rate, but then Edmonds departs for 45. Rehan Raees smokes his first ball down the ground, but he goes shortly after. Nieboer tries to ramp a Chris Fleck delivery that’s travelling at approximately 32mph, and gets caught by Jahangir at slip for 28. And despite a truly delightful 37 from Osbourne — a genuine contender for Plough’s most aesthetically pleasing batter, a bonafide Zak Crawley reincarnation — the Whackers fall away, losing the game by an amount of runs that I can’t tell you with any kind of numerical precision as I wasn’t there at the end, in the final death throes, because at this point I was absolutely sick for a beer.

14:00

Plus, over on the Nursery, there’s a lot more happening. The crowd has swelled further. The sun is beaming. Hot shimmering air crackles with laughter and inebriation and that fast-paced, high-frequency burble of chatter you get when the drink is taking hold but the day is still young. Klara, Grayzer’s girlfriend, offers me a strawberry. Chris Butlin appears literally out of nowhere, just kind of materialises, and grabs one too.

“So hungry,” he says, biting the strawberry with admirable totality, leaving behind no meat whatsoever, just the green stuff. He then disappears again.

On the pitch, Nairborne Strikers need 19 off the last over. Ashish Paul has the ball. Oscar Sawyer hits a six, then turns it over to CRS. He also smashes an almighty six. The crowd absolutely erupts. They need 4 off 2. Jesus, I’m actually nervous, watching this. The DSG is seeing a last over more pulsating than anything the IPL has served up this year, so far. CRS scrambles a single. 3 off 1. Puff then delivers an excellent ball — not too full or short — that goes through to the keeper, and Ainslie’s Allsorts are through to the final by a bee's dick.

“That’s experience for you,” Tom Lonnen says to nobody in particular. “Proper bowling. None of this weak pathetic new generation nonsense.”

15:00

During the tea break, it's clear that nobody really wants to play cricket anymore. The finalists don’t have much enthusiasm at all. Nothing short of extreme physical violence will get Sean to play again. Grayzer and I, on the other hand, are rather excited about the prospect of sitting on the sidelines and falling steadily into a drunken stupor while others entertain us in the middle.

Iskandar and Cakey are some of the very few who are keen for it. And no wonder. Once again they’re in scintillating form, slapping the ball to all parts and giving the Cows another excellent platform. All I can think, watching these two, is that I’m grateful my spot as 2s opener is guaranteed this season — at least for the first few games.

Duray nods knowingly. “Why do you think I signed on for another season captaining the 1s?”

Iskandar and Cake are among the top performers of the day. They don’t look rusty at all, which is quite incredible, given they’ve netted literally once all year. For the most part, it’s an extraordinarily village affair. Nobody remembers how to field. The movements all feel remarkably unnatural, and I suppose that’s because they are. Human evolution does not match up with this sport in the slightest. It goes against nature itself.

I wonder if this near-unanimous rustiness applies to scoring as well.

“Oh yeah,” Tom Glynne-Jones nods. “My triangles need a lot of work.”

Andrew Cosgrove, scoring this game, agrees. “I get a near panic attack when there’s a no ball and a run on the same delivery.”

“Even basic numerical counting — your ones, twos, threes — feels a bit alien.”

Giordy has once again hurt his finger — he seems to wrack up digital injuries as if they’re quarterly quotas that simply have to be met — so I head inside to grab some ice, and another Guinness, and somehow get locked into a feverish discussion with Grayzer and Stephen Britto about whether batters are required by MCC laws to wear gloves and pads. Grayzer is adamant that a batter HAS to wear gloves, but not pads.

We consult the actual MCC laws, like the nonces we are, and learn that Grayzer is wrong. There is no specific requirement to wear pads or gloves. You could, it appears, bat naked, so long as you do have a bat. Britto now has serious doubts about Grayzer’s wider authority at Ploughmans CC.

16:00

I head back outside. Benny has dislodged Duray for a duck. Ritik Jaat is now trying to ramp him, missing each time, and Benny just sort of stands there after each one, hands on hips, with the disappointed incredulous glare of a dad standing on his porch observing children make TikToks. He bowls him next ball — a lovely darter — then, by way of a send-off, does a few shadow ramps himself.

Canelo is batting beautifully. Left handers always look so poetic, for some reason. He laces one to long on, where everyone’s sat, gets so much of it, and Champion Boss, in one smooth fluid motion, runs to his right and sticks his huge hand out and claims a truly obscene catch, then just keeps running. He does it all with the breezy elan of someone lacing their shoes or brushing their teeth. Made the thing look, like, not a big deal. He gets mobbed. Sean and I both run onto the pitch, out of sheer excitement, then hold each other and just say, over and over again: “Oh my GOD.”

I sit down next to Livia and try to gauge her Mediterranean outlook on all the things happening in front of her. She doesn’t understand why batters tap gloves so much. She thinks everyone, in their whites, looks like a bride. She also finds it outrageous how everyone seems to be drinking copious amounts of alcohol and not eating anything. I tell her to take that soft cock southern European mentality somewhere else, thank you very much, and spin around wondering where the hell I put that Guinness of mine. She sighs wistfully, putting on her third layer.

17:00

The second dig is underway — Ainslie’s Allsorts need 200 — but nobody is really registering the action on the pitch anymore. A constant low-rumbling hum of garbled conversation fills the now slightly chilly April air, more disjointed and louder than earlier. Many people are quite drunk now. The boundary is lined with bodies — some pacing around, some standing engaged in sensible conversation, others splayed on blankets or hunched over benches talking excitedly. It’s lovely, taking it in for a moment, this whole zoo of human weirdness churning relentlessly all around me.

I light a cigarette, and head over to AJ Prasad and Aislynn Rogers, and ask for their impressions on things. Prasad is full of admiration for Champion Boss.

“That’s Champion Boss?” gasps Aislynn, as if she were sighting Father Christmas.

“That’s the man himself.”

“Wow,” she says, awestruck, observing this true mountain of a man. “Yeah, I can see it. Champion Boss.”

AJ is also impressed with Qammar Jamshaid, who works at my local off license. I went in there after Lord’s nets one day, absolutely piss drunk, to grab some cigarettes and a strawberry Mirinda for the walk home, and, noticing my bag, we struck up a conversation and became dear friends. Now he’s here, bowling absolute gas. Never underestimate the power of bossman recruitment, folks. That’s two quality bowlers we’ve found through this avenue, with Hari Vignesh being the other one.

I ask Aislynn for her impressions, gesturing in front of me at the vaguely cricket-like movements happening in the middle distance.

“Oh, I’ve mainly just been working the crowd,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you know, dispensing some advice. Solving conflicts. Offering solutions. Giving a much needed woman perspective on things, reminding men of their deep-seated internal prejudices that they don’t even know they have. That sort of thing.”

“Good,” I say, putting out my cigarette. “Good. We need that, I reckon.”

18:00

The game ends with Conjob’s Cows successfully defending their total. The best team, by far. It’s been a wonderful day of sometimes brilliant but mainly comical cricket, but now everyone’s much more interested in the ridiculous amount of sausages and wings being carefully incinerated by Bad Jake. I’m so drunk, by this point, that I start babbling about how I still sometimes secretly believe that people are lizards.

“They ARE lizards,” John Walton booms, giving me a high five. Hell yeah, lizard brother. Flies on me tonight.

Umar Iqbal, who is about five times drunker than I am, asks me if he now has permission to have a shower. I tell him he does, then start rounding up the usual suspects for a bit of steamy fun.

It’s a terrific time, as always. With the April light rapidly dissipating, the shower is darker than usual, more atmospheric, heightened by the incredible amount of steam being produced as Duray and Ainslie and Jon Ryves get bang into some singing. I have no soap or towel, as usual. Just my body and an open mind. I call into the ether for some soap, and some Original Source slides in my direction, delivered through the steam by persons unknown. Leon Parks does not want to give me his towel. Ainslie rubs himself down with a hand towel, then throws it to me. It’s wonderful.

Back in the changing rooms, there’s a frenzied chorus of chatter and a thick smell of deodorant. It’s hard to hear oneself, or make sense of what anyone’s saying. Duray is talking to me about a wicket he took, and I keep interrupting, thinking he’s talking about something completely different.

“Jesus,” he shakes his head. “Everyone’s gone, aren’t they.”

19:00

I make my way outside, now wearing my long trenchcoat, and everyone has an opinion about it. Callum Daley says it’s the kind of thing you wear while lingering outside primary schools. Aman calls me a flasher. Spence says it reminds him of Trinity, from The Matrix. Umar is convinced I’ve got sex toys lining the inside, like I’m some sort of door-to-door dildo salesman. Theo Burns thinks it ‘looks good’. Sean says it’s one of the worst things he’s ever seen.

Unfortunately, I can’t stay any longer. There’s a birthday in Mile End to attend, so I don’t get to roll around in the muck with my beloved fellow livestock as the light recedes and the jugs pile up on top of each other and everything beyond these hallowed pastures vanishes into a mere abstraction. Not this time, at least. There will be much, much more of this.

Even so, it’s a shame. It’s hard to pull away. Because, honestly, where on earth would you rather be? It’s challenging to think of anywhere on earth where one feels more at home, in this sacred space, the DSG — where everywhere you turn there’s smiles and laughter and someone dying to pour you a drink, and a universal sense that we have all the momentum — all of us, together, about to ride the crest of a high and beautiful wave that is the 2025 season.

BRING IT ON. Plough On!