Ben Stockton's thunderous century helped Pacific recover from a top order collapse, but was not enough to avoid defeat against Strongroom CC in our late September friendly.

Winning the toss and choosing to bat on a bouncy track, Pacific's openers strode out: Paul Rajkumar accompanying Toby Chasseaud, who needed just three runs to reach 1000 for the season. He was to get it in the least convincing way possible: gloving one down the leg side and seeing the keeper spill the catch and allowing him to run the last required run, before being bowled in the next over by Mohammed. Still, an impressive milestone for the club captain. 

Talking of impressive cricketers, Strongroom opener Mohammed bowled with hostility and pace, quickly adding the wickets of Ormesher (first ball, caught at short backward square leg) and Dinsey (very clean bowled indeed) to his collection, whilst the wilier seam of Grant saw off debutant Arsalan Syed. Pacific were 22-4 and in need of some stubborn batting when Stockton strolled out to join Rajkumar who was doing his best impression of a rock in a storm. 

Stockton was to bat for the rest of the innings, holing out off the last ball but not before hitting thirteen fours, six sixes and pulling Pacific up to 207 almost single handedly. Support came from Rajkumar (27), Siddiqui (19) and Timbadia (11).

The chase always looked fairly comfortable for Strongroom despite some good bowling from Pacific's seamers - number 3 batsman Rashid returning fire with a century of his own and anchoring the innings. Three wickets on debut for Arsalan, bowling very passable seam despite being sold to us as a leg spinner, threatened to make it more interesting but the winners were never really in doubt, the visitors coasting come with 10 overs to go and five wickets in hand. 

At the risk of stretching a bit for something to talk about, this may have been the first time Pacific fielded two seam bowlers who bowl whilst bespectacled: John Ormesher and Glen Leeson. I wonder if the Pacific archives hold such important statistics?