A bowl of miserly cereal, followed by the rapid fire packing of my bag, making sure I hadn’t forgotten any of the essentials: whites, trainers, spikes, spike key, towel, sliders, box, socks, boxers, water, baggy, and sunglasses. Turns out there’s quite a few. But this morning was different. Instead of the leisurely 15 minute bus ride I normally enjoy to the G, I was heading to the leafy greens of the ‘burbs.

After being misdirected by citymapper numerous times, who seemed as unsure as I was as to where exactly Chipstead and Coulsdon were meant to be, I eventually made it to Victoria. I bumped into Rob Mead, fresh (or perhaps sore would be more accurate), from the already legendary twos game the day before where he himself had taken a blinder of a catch. Upon arriving at East Croydon for the second leg of our journey, we met Iskander Eaton and Phil Kelly (PK henceforth) and all of sudden I was surrounded by a veritable array of bowling, batting and keeping. And myself of course.

On arriving in Coulsdon we were joined by Hisham Khan and Bharat Ramesh and having been prior advised that it was best to share a taxi, rather than take a 10 minute bus and a 30 minute hike through farmers fields, went to see a woman about a taxi or two to Chipstead Cricket Club. While waiting for the taxi(s), Iskander rather nonchalantly recounted how he had fallen over in the shower this morning and ended up under the sink. While it wasn’t clear at the time how this correlated to batting performance, Iskander has since confirmed that he’ll be throwing himself out the shower before every game for the foreseeable future. The taxi arrived and it became apparent that the woman running the taxi stand had clearly misheard cricket for contortionist, as she cognizantly observed that we might actually all struggle to fit in it, which was to put it mildly. It was remarkably cosy with three of us, and even without bags we’d have been pushing it with four of us. Not ones to be deterred however, PK, Bharat, and I hopped in and sped towards the ground, leaving the others to sort themselves out with an uber.

Upon arriving at the ground, it was clear that when God made the world in six days, and decided that the seventh was to be a day of rest, what he actually meant was for it to be a day of cricket. Surrounded by pleasant green, with two trees on the pitch itself (which local custom dictated to be a 4 if hit) it was a proper place to spend a Sunday and play some cricket. They had even freshly painted the lines that morning, including marking middle, as well as providing umpires and a scorer for the whole match. The only downside was that while having a lovely picket fence, it was sadly not painted white, which did lose them a few marks.

Leon won the toss and sent us out to bat. Part of the logic was that when we played them last year, we ended up chasing 259 and finishing 114 all out, no thanks in part to their kiwi overseas. Not wanting a repeat of that, Iskander and Meady headed out to the middle. The pair immediately set to work, with the first two balls going for four. After a bit of toil, Meady unfortunately edged one to the keeper, but remained in remarkably chipper form, remarking that it really was a lovely place to bat as he returned to us. Hisham went out to the middle and he and Iskander really began to build up a score, picking the gaps in the field with precision and running hard when they hadn’t.

Hisham eventually departs on a well made 30, while Iskander continues to pepper the boundary for four. Bharat joins him and the pair continue to build up the score, but once Iskander arrives on 97, he lifts one to a fielder who doesn’t mess around, bringing to an end what had been a very fine knock indeed. However, we had comfortably surpassed last year’s total of 114, which Leon declared was the first priority, noting that another hundred wouldn’t hurt either though.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. As traumatic as getting out while on 97 is, what followed was even more tragic. A true collapse followed as their Australian overseas, who hadn’t quite been cutting it in Division 2, tore through our middle order, taking three in one over. This eventually necessitated a cameo from No Bat Chad, who dear reader, you’ll be overjoyed to hear registered a new high score - 3no, thanks in no small part to the good running from Aislynn Rogers at the other end. This left 187 for Chipstead, Coulsdon & Walcountians to chase.

Tea was a solid affair. Good variety of sandwiches including some of the classics and a fish finger sandwich which elicited a great deal of excitement from the Plough. There was also a good deal of small, battered chicken-y bits and two different pizzas, one of which was a jalapeno and meat feast. Jalapenos are a bit much for my delicate stomach before bowling, but Bharat had no such compunctions, which I honestly later reflected was quite brave given the amount of running, diving, and general muscle clenching and unclenching he later embarked upon in the field.

We were soon back out to the field and PK and I were to open the bowling. PK bowled some lovely seam, pinning the batters in their crease and giving them absolutely nothing, really piling the pressure on. I tried to imitate PK’s seam masterclass, to varying success, and after one particularly painful over, Leon decided I should have one more. What at the time seemed like rather charitable captaincy turned out to actually be rather commendable foresight. I managed to bundle the ball past the bat and into the stumps twice in two balls, setting myself up for a hat-trick, which I then rather lacklustrely bowled onto the batter’s pads, right over leg stump, which despite a voracious appeal from everyone on the field was correctly and justly turned down by the umpire.

Marz and Azza, both fresh from league cricket the day before, came into the attack and turned the screws, with Marz obliterating the stumps in his second over for a wicket maiden. The spirit in the field was a strong one, mainly due to Joshua Kerr’s formidable level of chat, personalised for each bowler. Leon with the gloves was a resolute wall, taking a blinding one handed catch low to the side which everyone and their mum thought had taken a nick, apart from the umpire it seemed. Despite the positivity and the pressure, runs started to leak through, and their Aussie international who came in at 5 settled into a very strong partnership with their surviving opener. Despite mixing it up with spin, which had bought the oppo such joy in the first innings, they navigated it well and capitalised on the advantages any lapse in fielding gave them.

Ultimately, they chased it down with 6 wickets and 5 overs to go. Going out there, we knew we needed another 30-40 runs to make a game out of it but we still felt we were in the game. It confirmed the age-old truth that the best way to beat the Plough is to use your Division 2 overseas players to maximum effect, both batting and bowling, which CCWCC seem to have taken to heart.

Kerrsy and I took advantage of the rather pleasant shower facilities at the ground, with him kindly offering me use of his soap which he clearly thought I needed, before the Plough congregated in the dying embers of the summer sun. A group gathered around Aislynn, who was revising for her settlement visa Life in the UK test. We delved into some of the more understated questions around British life and values including what were people in the Bronze Age good at (metalworking) and which of these people were famous garden designers (f**k knows). I can happily confirm that Aislynn has since passed her test (woop woop!), no doubt in no small part to the rigorous Plough revision support.

Another group gathered around one of the umpires, who also seemed to be groundsman, coach, barman, parent, player, head of renovations and allround superstar, and who was sharing some of his wisdom around umpiring. One tidbit included how he never gives anyone out LBW first ball as he doesn’t want to go out there and ruin anyone’s weekend. “There’s no joy in it” he lamented, to which I pointed out there certainly is some joy to be had in ruining someone’s weekend, and if Meady’s laughter was anything to go by, I’d say he felt the same.

With a final pass by the remaining tea, the Plough departed back to the big smoke, an afternoon’s defeat more than enough time in this small corner of Sunday cricket, with sights firmly set on whatever next weekend may bring.

Match report from Chad No Chat Mace