Fresh off the back of a monumental T20 cup win on Tuesday where we put up a whopping total of 255, 11 more pirates returned to the Hollies for a T20 friendly against some talented Dulwich youngsters, a regular fixture which has seen some cracking contests in the past.

Four members of Tuesdays cup side returned for the double header, whilst Ajay John made his captaincy debut at the Plough. With just over 24 hours to go until showtime, it was looking like we may have just 8 players available to take the field, but after some hard graft from Chef we eventually managed to find a magic full 11.

Chef wins the toss and sticks with his plan to go for a chase, and with a spin heavy bowling contingent we open up with Bobby first over and Daley taking the second.

Bobby kicks things off very strong, conceding just a single and a wide, then beats the bat of their opener 4 times before demolishing his stumps last ball of the over to send him back for a duck.

The rest of the powerplay saw Dulwich going at a steady rate, with their highly talented opener Bradley accumulating nearly all of their runs. Just playing textbook, high-elbow cricket shots, finding the gaps to quickly reach his 50 and retire.

A super sad moment of the day saw Chef's friend Raj who kindly stepped in to help us field a side, but found himself injured within the first few overs and unable to bowl or bat. Huge shout out to Raj for still putting in a shift in the field and hope he has a quick recovery!

Debutant James Harvey, playing his first cricket match in about 15 years, really grew into his spell after a loose first over. He started to really find his length and bowl some unplayable balls - promising signs for a good new bowler with a few more net sessions and Sunday games under his belt!

Greg was our other first-change bowler who delivered some nice flighty goodness, and drew the next blood with an LBW that their umpire described "as plumb as it could possibly be."

Our next partnership of Sandeep and Cashy both did extremely well to keep things at bay whilst bowling to the short leg-side boundary.

One bat looked considerably less technical than the rest of the side, just swivelling to try and hit across the line, racking up a collection of dot balls. I walk over to Cashy and whisper to him "we should probably just try and keep this boy in for a bit longer" hoping he will just stick it full outside off every ball to him. Cashy nods at me and then just walks up and clean bowls him next ball.

A new lad then replaces him at the crease and smacks his first delivery for a six over long off. Sigh.

Sandeep delivers a maiden whilst this hard-hitting lad without a lid tried to scoop him two balls in a row. Felt a bit like Ritik had walked out in disguise batting right-handed for a moment.

A few loose deliveries get punished for boundaries amongst some regular dots, and then this aggressive guy decides to just come flying down the track and find himself stumped by stand-in wicketkeeper Ben Walters, who dives forward from a few steps back to gift Cashwin his second scalp of the day.

The final 5 overs are shared around the attack, with Gregs third over being recorded in the book under a new bowler named Kig. Took us far too long to work this out after the match. A very tidy penultimate over from Bobby allowed us to restrict Dulwich to a respectable but chasable total of 175-4.

So we begin our innings with quite the opening pair. Chris Ovens, a fellow Gooner friend, currently high on life for reasons I'm not sure anyone has had to hear much about from anyone at the club. And then we have the man of the hour Tom Merilaht. It's only been 24 hours since this guy scored a T20 ton on the hollies. Evidence witnessed thus far has suggested that he's quite good at batting.

The pair kick things off looking exactly as you'd expect them to. Ovens' shapes are looking tasty and he makes some good use of those big old levers. Merilaht just continues looking as unstoppable as he did the previous evening and they both respect some decent quick bowling, whilst running hard and putting away any bad balls.

Then we get towards the end of the powerplay when Dulwich introduce a bowling change. A kid called Sokal who looks a few years younger than the rest of his teammates.

He comes in to bowl his first ball with a nice looking leggy action, so Merilaht absolutely pumps him for 6. Now we're all guilty of missing our length on our first ball and getting pumped. Just reset and go again.

Nope, Tom absolutely pumps him again.

Then we have the momentary headloss where he decides to ditch the leggies and just bowl medium pacers at him instead. You guessed it, 6 again.

I can't even imagine what's going through this kid's head at this point, maybe just has The Jam playing on repeat if he heard John Walton's new song at the DSG on the weekend.

Tom then only scores a 4 (disgraceful I know) to ruin the perfect over, then smacks the 5th ball for another 6 to bring up his 50 and retirement, just the 21 balls faced.

Sokal must feel absolutely delighted with this and has one ball left of the over to make save his economy a bit. Unfortunately for Sokal, Captain Chef walks out and launches this for 6 to punish him even further.

34 runs from the over without any extras. Bruh. We then found out that Sokal is only 14 and this was his first game for the team. Absolutely brutal stuff.

Dulwich's star bat Bradley then proves he can do it all as he bowls some very tidy overs whilst removing our skipper in the process.

Ovens gets bowled by one that snaps a bail in half for 19 (27) and Sandeep gets caught soon after hitting a straight six down the ground. Daley and Walters both get caught for 3 each and suddenly the momentum is starting to switch the other way a bit.

Fate is now in the hands of Bobby and Greg who keep things going at the rate, both scoring freely where they could and with the help of a few extras here and there. With the required rate beginning to creep up, Bobby hits a delicious lofted cover drive for 6 at the end of the 18th and we are right back in the driving seat.

13 needed from the last 2 overs. Light is fading and the Dulwich quick is throwing down some heat on good length, Bobby and Greg both now struggling to get bat on ball. Fortunately, Dulwich decide to gift us 2 wides and 4 byes in the over, keeping us within touching distance of the target.

Cashy is sat there padded up to bat next, he decides to be clever and say "I'm not even needed here these boys have got this." Final ball of the over and Greg thinking smartly backs up hard and charges down the other end to get Bobby back on strike for the final over. Bobby Stands firmly behind his crease and Greg finds himself walking off the field run out. Nice one Cashy.

6 required from the last and it's time for Cashy to now be the hero. He starts with a single and Bobby follows up with another single himself. 4 required from 4. Cashy bags himself a straight full toss and BAM! The man smacks it through the gap between mid wicket and mid on for 4, and the PloughOn chat goes wild with loose change related content. Pirates win by 4 wickets with just 3 balls remaining!

Chef is walking around with a grin on his face knowing that he has a 100% captaincy record, and treats the side to both a Plough jug of Lager and a Southbank jug of Guinness, whilst we're all trying to convince Cashy to update his LinkedIn profile to the one that Spence sent in to the chat.

Standout performances go to Merilaht for his 52* (21), Cashy for his match winning runs and figures of 3-0-22-2 and my POTM has to be Bobby for his match winning 33* (27) alongside a tight spell of 4-0-29-1 bowling in the powerplay and the death. Shout out also goes to Greg for his 3-0-18-1 and crucial partnership with Bobby contributing 15 (12).

A massive thanks to everyone involved with organising this fixture, and a big thanks to Dulwich and their manager for being great sports and for yet another fantastic contest on the night.

Plough on!

Match report from Callum Daley