With Priory Park cc pulling out last minute, Bussey XI came to the rescue and Pacific had a chance to play one more game on grass wickets for the season. It was a perfect day for cricket, blue skies and sun shining over a picturesque Greenwich park wicket. The pitch looked a little soggy but Pacific decided to bat regardless, with a goal to match the last big score against Bussey at Wray.

Well this time things were a little different from Wray. Toby and Sumeet started off cautious but comfortable, until the soggy pitch combined with some un-orthodox bowling from Bussey started causing issues. The usual ballistic Sumeet was kept quiet by a nagging line & length from the first female bowler Pacific faced this season, which lead to him hitting a straight low catch to the bowler at the other end (the catch was disputed, but being a friendly game we let it by). Sandeep came next and was in no mood to be cautious, smashing a couple of good looking boundaries before he fell to a low straight ball on his stumps. Toby kept the other end steady, as he usually does, trying to stay focused amid a very distracting mix of bowling: there was a beamer or two every other over, quite a few bounced more than whats allowed by MCC rules and a few balls never even reached the batsman. This eventually led to Pacific batsmen trying to chase the ball and getting out to full tosses and long hops. So when Nav and Mark entered the scene, they were determined to not get frazzled by the chaotic bowling heatmap and let Bussey score the runs for pacific with the extras. And they came in heaps, with Extras as the highest scorer of the day for Pacific: 55, followed by Nav’s second 50 (the most sedated innings of his pacific career) and a resolute 13 from Mark (who could have scored more if Nav dint run him out + great fielding from Bussey).  Pacific ended the innings with 196 on the board, which we would have thought would be enough on this pitch.

Well, Bussey wasn’t messing when it came to batting. They quickly reached 70 for 1 in the first 8 overs, raising concerns within the pacific bowling lineup. Nav was brought in to break the partnership and a nice inswinger undid the attacking left hander and brought some relief. Aroon, the big game hunter, then followed up with a nice tempting flighter to send back the dangerous Bussey captain, thanks to some nifty work behind the stumps by Sumeet. Bussey never really looked threatening the target after that, with all the bowlers chipping in with a wicket or two: special mention was Rafiq’s first wicket for pacific!