After the previous day's ill-tempered debacle at Springfield Park, the PCC were grateful to play a fixture in good spirits against Beamers in the more civilised surroundings of North Middlesex CC. We were also pleased to welcome debutant Liam Mulheran, and to welcome back Rahul Ravikrishnan (one of four Pacificicists to double up over the weekend) and Liam Carmichael for their second appearances for the club. The icing on the cake was the presence of returning vibes merchant Glen "Man Like" Leeson, last seen in Hackney in 2018. 

As tends to happen, two games were taking place simultaneously at North Midds, resulting in very short boundaries and an exponentially increased risk of being smashed on the head by a rogue six from next door. With Beamers offering a mix of "golden oldies" and "kids", the stage looked set for Pacific to put on a big total having won the toss and elected to bat. 

Untested opening duo Rahul and Jimbob got us off to a flying start, with Rahul caressing the first delivery of the match to the boundary. Having now settled firmly in to the club following the previous night's post-game festivities at Clapton's Anchor and Hope, during which he regaled his new team-mates with vivid tales of past lives in Kuwait and Chicago, Rahul looked comfortable and fluent at the crease. Sadly, he perished on 29 having mistimed an uppish one to mid-on, the silver lining to Rahul's 29-shaped cloud being that his playing the ball early was attributable solely to a burning zeal to get willow on leather in his return to the grass wicket game. Soden, meanwhile, had looked in command until he was adjudged LBW to one that did a bit off the pitch from Pittman the Elder. 

Toby (36) made his usual steady, composed contribution, before Sharmy brought his luxurious, intoxicating blend of Gujarati spice to the middle. Alas, the Hero of Amstelveen was unseated a single run short of his half-century, having also been adjudged LBW, this time to the off-breaks of wily old tweaker Edny. Understandably, Sumeet was not best pleased with yet another LBW decision going against him, although others present claimed at tea to have heard "two pad noises". He may also, in restrospect, have legitimate grievances in respect of being sent back when going for a couple of easy-ish singles earlier in his innings – but hindsight is 20-20, as they say in America.

Reny came in at number five, having been short of batting opportunities in his appearances for the club to date, the sum total of which comprised a duck in in Bloemendaal with his in-laws watching on. Reny vindicated the captain's faith with a fine fifty, consonant with his unarguable class as demonstrated in the nets. Liam C made a useful contribution with his first runs for the club, before, having has his first taste of the sweet runny nectar, his thirst for more got the better of him and he ran himself out in a frenzy of reckless delerium. A salutary lesson indeed. As a wise man once said: the runs they tasteth sweet, but too many turneth toxic. Stockton did a bit with the bat and we closed on what felt like a respectable 238 off 40 overs. 

Now, a word about tea. North Midds is an expensive ground at which to play, and in the past there have been grumblings of discontent with respect to the quality of teas provided. When Leeson inquired as to the quality of teas during our batting innings, his team-mates were heard to describe it as a "mixed bag" – featuring, as it has in the past, watermelon (good) and Iceland-quality dinosaur shapes of uncertain constitution and provenance (bad). There could be no place for such equivocacy on Sunday. We were spoiled with sausages in sweet chilli sauce, sandwiches to spare, vegetarian pasta and rice options, as well as classic bourbons and custard creams. There may have even been something that Sam Howes could eat. Keep up the good work, North Midds!

Now to our fielding innings. It turned out that our confidence before the game (noting that we were playing a team half full of "kids") was entirely misplaced, given that the "kids" in question were probably all about 18 or 20, significantly physically fitter than most of our number, blessed with far greater natural ability and, if you looked closely, were majoritively adorned with North Middlesex caps, meaning that they play proper league cricket to a decent standard. We got a couple of wickets (including one by means of an outstanding slip catch from Ben Stockton), but the game never looked close, as K Pittman (one of three of the Pittman clan in the Beamers XI on the day) smeared the ball to all corners of the ground on his way to an unbeaten 117. Even our attempts to get in the young man's head didn't work. During tea, Sam had mentioned, with a sort of wry wink, that he was looking forward to resuming his battle with young Kyle from 2018. The modest youngster, who also scored a century against us last year, replied: "Ah, well you dropped me last year." "Don't worry," parped Burnham, "we'll definitely drop you again this year, you're on for a hundred today, son." And so it came to pass. We dropped Kyle on 15 and never got another chance. Burnham also dropped Pittman's sidekick A Gole, who achieved a goal of his own by racing to a flamboyant 50. In dropping Gole, not only did Burnham squander what little chance Pacific had in the game, but further diminished our prospects as he left the field of play due to injury, the split webbing between his fingers requiring stitching back together in the Whittington Hospital's A&E department.

Still, blood spilled for a good (or should that be 'lost'?) cause. 

BB