It was a very changed Pacific side that took the field versus regular weekend opponents London Fields for the cup knockout competition at Victoria Park. This meant midweek debuts for Umrish Pandiya, Ben Snodin, Harry Holmes and Rob Disney.

Although this meant we were missing some handy stalwarts, the opportunity was there for players to make their own mark.

The opposition won the toss and had no hesitation in batting first under slightly ropey skies. Ayre and Snodin bowled well enough in their opening spells without quite getting the breakthroughs required. This meant a steady start and it meant a stiff task for messrs Pandiya and Dinsey  with their off breaks. Both would bowl very fine spells, with Pandiya bowling especially well despite having pulled a quad so early in his spell. He would finish with 2-34 and Dinsey with 1-38 showing admirable control and no little guile giving captain Korgy the option of bowling both through. Although the spirit and ground fielding was sound, unfortunately the catching wasn’t and probably 5 chances went begging even if none were especially easy. This allowed Fields to accrue 153 runs from their 16. This was also assisted by conceding 24 extras through a few too many wides.

With a rather bowling orientated line up batting options were at a premium for the Pacific VIII. However opener Holmes with intelligence and craft got the response off to a flier. Pacific would maintain a rate of around 9 an over and momentum wasn’t lost despite the loss of Melville. Korgaonkar in an unusually elevated position of 3 rotated the strike decently, departing bowled off his legs for 15 and things looked reasonably optimistic until around the 9th over when Holmes departed for a beautifully made 41. Although Pandiya made light of his injury to show glimpses of craft with bat,s, and wickets fell rather regularly and the innings unraveled all too quickly and Pacific succumbed to 105, 48 runs shy. Plenty of promise at different stages, but not enough put together.

All told, there are several players with the ball who are showing promise in the various iterations of sides that we have put out, and a few hardy hands showing up with the bat, but it would be nice if we could put it together in the same game. Then we might go somewhere.