Peshwa 192 all out (54.5 overs) – Bloyce 3-37
Southgate 64 all out

As appropriate for a game of cricket in a football World Cup summer, this top of the table clash was a game of two halves.

Peshwa won the toss and elected to bat first.

Will McLoughlin, from the top end, extracted pace, bounce and both openers, including Peshwa’s R Desai. At the other end, Woffers (17-8-25-2) and Peshwa’s young number three were engaged in a battle of wills. It was attritional stuff and for the second week in a row Adam Collins was distracting himself from the bowler’s equivalent of pad rash with an extensive warm up routine (briefly interrupted to take a looping catch at mid-off from Peshwa’s other celebrity namesake).

Southgate were on top at the halfway mark of the innings, with Ollie Bellwood adding a third catch, but the technically correct youngster and the more free spirited lower middle order combined to block, swipe and biff against Southgate’s spin twins (the original, and best, R Desai and a fully loosened Adam).

With eleven overs to go before the mandated 55 over maximum, captain Sam Faruqi turned to his closers, George Bloyce and Liam Collett. George (3-37) and Liam (2-17) bowled full, quick and straight to pick up five wickets between them, the highlight being a high, spiralling chance to deep extra cover to Safe Hands Sam to finish the innings.

The less said about our reply, the better. With varying degrees of bad luck and self-destruction, we collapsed for 64 to a steady inswing bowler who picked up nine wickets and finished with a hat-trick. Sam, having hit two of his first three balls from the same bowler to the boundary, was left bemused and stranded on 12 not out.

Woffers