Match Report
I’ll start by saying there were a lot of weary heads after last night’s victory in The Ploughs first ever day/night match. After a 30 minute drive via the Servo for water, chocolate and smokes we found ourselves greeted by the lovely Amigos CC.
The ground was a first for me as it was played entirely on a 4G soccer pitch. There was no actual cricket pitch just lines and very short square boundaries. A grandstand sat nicely next to it for all spectators and sledgers.
I opened the batting with Patrick Gledhill and quickly found myself out for 1 after shit footwork, bowled by an in-swinger. What happened next was something a few of us have been waiting to see. With Paddy (24) batting at one end, rotating the strike, James Tisato hit the first hundred for The Plough this year, ending on 122 of 86 balls with fifteen 4s and six 6s. James cleared the ground a few times and got a great round of applause from all that attended.
After a 147 run partnership Patrick fell trying to hit out. Freddie Mills came in and smashed 44 (32 balls) and we were 3-204 after 30 overs. Duray added some late hitting and ended with 34 (19 balls), Aman Jain (10) with a couple of boundaries but no other Plough batsman made it to double figures when trying to hit out with a good platform, (including Matt Jones who ran himself out for a golden duck after hitting it back to the bowler)! Not to fear we made a par score of 260 after 40 overs.
I thought Amigos bowled pretty well mostly and it was noted that we had to bowl quite full as anything short was getting dispatched to the short boundaries. Matt Bolshaw (1-36) opened things up with Aman (2-55) and while we bowled well at times with plenty of dot balls, the oppo, with the home ground advantage, managed to keep finding the boundary. With it being quite hard to focus in the field given the barrage we copped from the stands a few mistakes crept into our game and after Fred pulled out of a catch I had easily covered, then continuing to pick it up and throw it for 4 overthrows it was safe to say things were not going our way.
The openers for Amigos raced to 47 off 7 overs, where we found our first wicket with Matt Bolshaw hitting the timber. A couple of overs later and both our first and second change bowlers started to operate with Matt spencer (1-20 ) picking up a wicket in his second over, the score was 2-82 off 12. Unfortunately the oppo number 3 fancied Matt Jones (1-48) and the scoring rate continued. After 17 overs they had amassed 3-126. In the 17th over I (Barraz 2-20) was lucky enough to be handed the ball and after picking one off in the 19th over we had drinks.
From this point on The Plough started to dominate with Duray Pretorius (3-36) taking a double wicket maiden in his first over. We had taken 4-5 in 6 overs and both he and I bowled in tandem until we’d finished our allocation. The score was now 193-7 in the 32nd over. Aman and Bolsh returned to clean up the tail and with a much better fielding effort we closed out the game in the 37th over and knocked them over for 219.
It was another great victory for us with shenanigans running late into the night. Jonesy and Spence having to wear a fox outfit for getting golden ducks and the amazing tea were real highlights. A lovely bunch of people and easily the best tea I’ve had playing cricket. There was extreme competition in Portugal between the cricket tea ladies, but the Amigos ladies would’ve impressed Woman’s Weekly with their spread of homemade quiche, sandwiches, cakes and I think we can all agree that our favourite was the cheese puffs! There was so much food there were a few that went back for seconds and thirds!
Barras
