A somewhat understrength Pacific, not helped by a last-minute pull-out, could manage only 118 and Archway Ladder knocked them off for the loss of only four wickets.

Ben Stockton valiantly volunteered to write a match report but then forgot to do so, so apologies if what follows is rather skeletal. With a weak batting line-up, many of our hopes were resting on him after his 166 not out the previous week, but unfortunately he followed this up with a duck. Most of the other batsmen also struggled against Archway's tight bowling and fielding.

Having smashed 80 or so against the Authors in Victoria Park, Riz, upon hearing that we were short, dashed to Wray and slotted in at No 7, which at least gave us an extra 14 runs in what would otherwise have been an even more meagre total.

When Archway batted Stockton and Saunders exerted good pressure but their efforts weren't backed up in the field, with a few catches going down (and a few not even reached) that could have perhaps helped us to pull off the most unlikely of victories. As it was, Archway ended up strolling to an almost inevitable win.

An extended highlight of the day was Guardianista Andrew Mayers making his Pacific debut in his first cricket match for about 20 years. He hit (well, edged) his first ball for four, reminisced about his brother with Tony T, got special dispensation from the oppo to field in a strange glove (just the one) because he didn't want his hand to get hurt, and hoovered up the remaining food at the end of the day to take to a poker tournament he was hosting at his Acton mansion that evening.

We were glad that Nuggsy seemed to suffer no last damage from a most unfortunate mishap - definitely the worst lowlight of the day - during a rare Pacific fielding drill before the match.

Pacific v Archway Ladder Toss won by Pacific

Pacific innings  R  M  B  4  6 Ahmed Hussain   c w/k b Omar   4  0  24  0  0   Ben Burnham   b Osman   0  0  1  0  0   Murtaza Siddiqui†   c w/k b Omar   19  0  22  3  0   Toby Chasseaud*   c Maroof b Omar   40  99  58  5  0   Ben Stockton   c w/k b Omar   0  0  2  0  0   Jay Lakhani   b Maroof   3  39  28  0  0   Andrew Mayers   b Maroof   4  18  4  1  0   Rizwan Siddiqui   c dmo b Omar   14  27  19  2  0   Rafiq Ratta   b Faisal   1  0  3  0  0   John Saunders   c unsure b Faisal   4  0  3  1  0   Tony Tambyrajah   not out    1  0  0  0  0    Extras (b 7, lb 2, w 20, nb 1) 30      TOTAL (33.0 Overs) 118ao

Fall of wickets:  1-7 , 2-41 , 3-46 , 4-46 , 5-70 , 6-74 , 7-110 , 8-111 , 9-112

Bowling  O  M  R  W    Osman   3  0  16  1    Asif   2  0  17  0    Dar Omar   7  2  17  5    Zaid   3  0  11  0    Wahab   7  2  15  0    Maroof   7  1  18  2    Faisal   4  1  15  2

Archway Ladder innings  R  M  B  4  6 Gary   b Stockton   0  0  0  0  0   Ikram   c Siddiqui b Saunders   4  0  0  1  0   Faruk   b Siddiqui   27  0  0  0  0   Faizel   c Siddiqui b Hussain   47  0  0  0  0   Wahab   not out    22  0  0  0  0   Asif   not out    5  0  0  0  0   Osman   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Zaid   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Maroof   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Omar   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Wahab   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0    Extras (b 0, lb 4, w 8, nb 4) 16      TOTAL (17.1 Overs) 121/4

Fall of wickets:

Bowling  O  M  R  W    Ben Stockton   7  2  30  1    John Saunders   5  0  32  1    Ahmed Hussain   3.1  0  33  1    Rizwan Siddiqui   1  0  10  1    Rafiq Ratta   1  0  12  0