By close of play last night at Guinness’s Peasedown HQ, the field was littered with shards of DayGlo pink, like tiny fragments of embarrassment. Hard to say which team bore the bulk of this but neither left the field without some discomfort. Somehow the shining orb of lacquered plastic, laughingly referred to as ‘the ball’, appeared to induce a kind of madness in all that came into its contact and thus ensued one of the more bizarre encounters of this year’s already incident-filled cricket season.

With a couple of exceptions, the Guinness bowling was characterised by slow, wide deliveries that begged to be spanked to the boundary. Instead, a high percentage was lofted skywards in what turned into one prolonged bout of catching practice. And, contrary to the normal rules of engagement and much to the bewilderment of Sloths’ batsmen, Guinness held on to every one of the opportunities thus proffered. Of the two Sloths that managed to consistently hit the ball along the ground, one ran himself out in a suicidal dash from the non-striker’s end, whilst the other – Stu Nelson – remained not out, having run out of partners to accompany him. Stumpchat aside, the only other Sloth to make a decent impact with the bat was Will Lewis, who eventually chose the wrong boundary for an attempted six and –like the majority of his team-mates – was duly caught.

Taking to the field to defend a total of just 87, Sloths could have been forgiven for assuming the game was already lost. However, aided by some questionable umpiring that only served to galvanize the fielders’ resolve, Sloths pulled something remarkable out of the bag. Hewes, in particular, clearly wasn’t going to give up easily and opened the bowling with ferocity and accuracy to lay down a marker for the home side that this would be no easy ride. Stumphat was keen as ever to remove the bails and had a certain stumping turned down by the umpire who seemed otherwise engaged. In the next over, the same official was all but lynched as he refused the most confident of appeals for a bat-and-pad catch at leg slip. But nothing could dampen Sloths’ resolve and the wickets began to fall.

Whilst Franks and Yerbury were just too good for the batsmen, Madeye adopted Guinness’s tactic of deploying the ‘bouncing bomb’, taking no less than three wickets with balls that, in addition to most probably being wide, each bounced twice before being hoisted to awaiting fielders. Credit to Mike ‘Get off your frigging mobile’ Bond for taking the sharpest of catches for the first of these. Lewis struck the stumps twice, removing key batsmen in the process and also took a fine catch in the deep; Bond senior induced some wayward hitting from the batsmen; Bond junior also invited the batsmen to take him on and, as he so often is, was initially rewarded with dropped catches in the field. Hewes, however, was having none of this and – covering vast amounts of ground to overtake his fielding comrades in the gathering darkness – snatched two extraordinary catches in consecutive overs to seal the victory with only a handful of runs to spare.

Questions have been raised about Sloths’ on-field conduct, including an enquiry into whether it is physically possible to insert a mobile telephone into the orifice to which Mike Bond referred. Similarly, the ECB is debating whether the ‘dying Sloth’ is an appropriate form of celebration for cricketers of more mature standing. But whatever the outcome of such machinations, nobody can deny that this was a win like no other and one that will go down in the annals (no, Mike, ‘Annals’) of Sloth history as both highly improbable and hugely enjoyable.

Geoffrey Boycott, Fair-Play Analyst, Slothful Times