A crushing victory over VPCCL new boys The Pumas despite only having seven. One of the more comic scorecards you will see. Not often an opener ends up on 4* in a successful chase. Opposition scoring the strangest seen for a while. Also notable for first wicket for the club for Tom Ireland with his first ball for the club and a winning debut as skipper for Aroon who will provide a more detailed report. JG
On a rather chilly East London evening 7 of Pacific’s finest were entrusted to do the job of 8. After losing the toss there was a real fear that we would have to chase a large target especially as for the first 3 overs or so we only had 6 men on the pitch. However despite the windy conditions and a lavishly swinging new orange ball the opposition, newcomers the Pumas didn’t get much of a move on and in the second over Darryl Roberts was rewarded for some lively bowling with a well taken catch by Forhad Ahmed. In the next over some indecisive running between the wickets resulted in the evening’s captain, Korgaonkar swooping in from extra cover and steaming in like a rhino to demolish the stumps and almost the bowler Gleadow as well! Fortunately Gleadow recovered from this almighty alarm to snare a wicket himself and with Roberts going onto collect two more along with another from Gleadow there seemed to be a danger the opposition wouldn’t muster more than 20.
It had to be said that several of the opposition had several guys up the top of the order who appeared not to have much played any sort of cricket but at least there were a few flourishing blows by the last couple of batsmen, who appeared to have arrived late and made sure that Gleadow and Roberts’s last couple of overs caused a little consternation. However on being given the ball on the 9th over, left arm seamer Ireland gave his Pacific midweek career quite an introduction by castling the Pumas last man and left Pacific a highly modest total of 48 to overcome.
The Pumas opening bowler was decidedly lively yet gave away a few runs with wides and no balls, the latter from banging the ball in halfway down the wicket. This problem was exacerbated and from both ends by a few byes being let through and apart from dismissing Ahmed in his second over there was little for the batsmen to be worried about as Ireland came in and played a couple of please cuts and drives to supplement the plentiful extras. It was only into the 5th over where the first change bowler promptly delivered a couple of wides for Pacific to seal the deal. Although it was a little hollow to win so easily some consolation was provided by the fact that every member of the team provided some assistance in some way. Apart from the bowlers, Forhad completed two catches, Briley kept tidily, and Lahrie Mohamed played sensibly at the top of the order, to help enhance a very comfortable win. It is to be expected that assignments will be tougher from here on in. AK
