Facing the old enemy, Southbank, we had a strong team, but, in the end no-one, apart from Max with the bat (85) and Sandip with the ball (7-3-26-2), quite came off.

The Plough batted first. Yanni had cruel luck with an inswinging yorker first ball knocking back his off stump, but Chris and Ben (newly capped today) coped well with uneven bounce and made some attractive shots until Ben mistimed a drive to be caught at mid-off. Chris was looking solid and hit what I thought was a well-controlled square cut heading boundarywards only to perish to a ‘worldie’ in the gully, perhaps six inches off the turf, by a fielder who, until then, had not looked to be the most athletic specimen. Sandeep and Tunna both batted fluently but left before they reached 20.

There followed about an hour’s worth of gritty intergenerational tussle between the Daltons, for Southbank and the Gumperts, for Plough. Father and son on each team. It is one of the great features of club cricket that creaky old men can get to play the game they love with their offspring. The contrast was that, for Southbank, the talent was (largely) with Dalton senior who bowled an astonishing spell (8-1-18-5) off the reel, while for Plough the magic is all with the younger generation. Eventually Gumpert senior fell to Dalton Senior, who then ran through another 3 Plough batsmen in the same over! 119 for 9 in the 27th, and last man Carl (freshly arrived from Stockholm that same morning) was striding to the crease.

In the seven overs that followed Max hit 55 runs, farming the strike to such effect that Carl faced just two balls. It was a classy performance, but when Max fell trying to hit over the top The Plough were all out for 176, which felt about 50 runs light.

We started badly in the field; 17 off the first over, and by the time Tunna put the brakes on to some extent and took the first wicket Southbank had passed 50 in seven overs. Jon Peak is a powerful batsman and he made a 32 ball 56. Sandeep got him in the end, but Nas Siddique took up the baton, uncharacteristically restrained at first and then batting more and more aggressively on his way to an unbeaten 81. There were encouraging spells from Carl and Justin, but it was clear that Southbank had the match well in hand, and they reached their target in the 32nd over.

Match report from Ben Gumpert