The Plough hosted I Don’t Like Cricket Club on the best pitch that the DSG has to offer i.e. the one closest to the bar. After skipper Simon Carson won the toss our supporters Steve Britto, Matt Spencer and Nigel Stephenson were drinking and encouraging our batsmen to the crease.

Tom Lockhart and Rich Buckley got off to a steady start against the oppo’s pretty decent lefty/righty opening bowling partnership. Buckley fell early but Lockhart was able to execute some delicious shots to get up to 35 runs before being caught just inside the boundary rope. It was a great one-handed catch and only inches away from another six. Our trio of supporters drank and clapped Max Gumpert to the crease to join Paul Hynes – then Nigel said he’s actually playing in the other game so should probably wander over. He took the jug with him.

Gumpert and Hynes didn’t waste much time and soon both were swatting the ball around – Max on 21 runs from his first 7 balls – and Hynes hit a quick 34 before gifting a simple catch. He wasn’t happy and he let his bat know that this was bad. Bad bat.

To keep the universe in balance for every bad bat there must be a good bat and in at 5 was Bob Keogh with his new Koo Koo Kookaburra. He soon christened the edges with some very streaky boundaries and he let his bat know that this was good. Good bat.

At the other end, Max was timing his shots exceptionally well and was peppering cars and the nursery roof with some power hitting. Gumpert and Keogh hit 20 runs off a single over (Max 19 of them) and together contributed an 80 partnership before Gumpert was trapped LBW on 72.

With only a few overs left Ravi Nathan ran down the wicket to smash the bowler but this time their spinner got one to grip and Ravi was stumped. Dave Nielsen-Scott also wasn’t waiting about and put on 26 runs from 16 balls before being caught. A great cameo.

Dan Rumford 2* and Keogh 42* left the pitch after the 35 overs had been bowled and The Plough had posted a decent-looking 252-6.

Crusty rolls courtesy of DSG and bonus assorted mini sausages were dispatched.

Graced with not one but two wicketkeepers in our team, it would surely be impossible not to have any keeping gear to use…

Lockhart had sized up our bowling unit and didn’t fancy the heat coming down so he offered the (borrowed from the oppo) keeping gloves to Buckley to wear for the day. Soon Rich was in the action as Lewis Wilby was indeed fizzing them down.

Talking about fizzing and down… Lewis was sporting a spectacular shiner after hitting the bottomless brunch bubbles on Saturday too hard and then hitting the floor even harder a bit later. However, Wilby is made of strong stuff and despite having vision in only one eye he bowled his 7 overs straight through and picked up 2 wickets for 24 runs. Lockhart assisted Wilby with an outstanding low diving catch to remove their number 4.

At the other end, Nielsen-Scott cleaned bowled their opener to pick up a wicket from his tidy 5 overs.

At 58-3 from 11 overs, the game looked like it was Ploughmans’ but I Don’t like CC have a couple of talented batters who were now at the crease. By drinks at 20 overs what was a 14 an over run chase was down to 8 an over and pressure was building. After sponsoring the fag break, Gumpert took the ball and bowled 7 overs straight. It was a great battle and Max was able to make the double breakthrough we needed by taking out both their big hitters.

However, the wickets came too late in the day for us and despite some excellent support bowling from Damon Greeney, Rumford and Carson their #3 and #5 had taken the game away from us and they reached 253 in the 34th over with 6 wickets down.

One small highlight was when their batsmen called over to the scorer to find out what he was on and “91” was the reply; Max then smashed the next ball into his pads and their umpire raised the finger. And also the run out that Buckley didn’t notice until after the match because he had been rolling on the ground after a failed diving catch 🙂

Although we trudged off disappointedly – leaving the stumps in and causing John to shout at us – the game was played in an excellent spirit, everyone contributed and we shared jugs with the oppo at the end.

It would have been great to celebrate a victory but the next best thing was watching Ploughmans’ live stream v Twickenham and sharing the joy in their terrific match.

… no, no, I love it

Bob Keogh