Pacific cruised to a third NELL victory of the season on a day that was a montage of the best of the British summer – torrential rain, a passing wedding party and a failed attempt to help some geezer with a flat battery get his motor started.

Skipper Toby Chasseaud top scored with 88 – moving to second in the all-time Pacific runs chart chart – as his 103-run sixth wicket stand with Arsalan Syed (40) took the score towards an impressive 217/7.

Opener Paul Rajkumar (23) and Archie Faulks (17) made promising starts but both were bowled trying to accelerate, meaning Chasseaud and Syed came together at a parlous 98-5. Early in their partnership the rain came, forcing an early tea and providing the opportunity to help a marooned motorist.

As the rain eased off, the pitiable petrol-head – who had no doubt heard talk of Pacific’s fabled altruism – asked for help pushing his car down the hill. Faulks, Keyana Sapp, Will Gingell and Will’s flatmate Alex Cannon (who is also keen to turn out for Pacific) obliged, pushing the car down the hill, up the hill and back down the hill.

But the ill-starred auto-lover could not get the ignition to bite and was left in the car park waiting for a good samaritan with a set of jump leads as Pacific eyes turned back to their own innings, which was itself in danger of stalling.

Chasseaud and Syed had other ideas, though, and powered through the gears with some big hitting and circumspect defence. Before long the sky was blue, sixes were raining down, Pacific had passed 200 and all was well. And what’s this? A gleeful gearhead speeds past in his vivified Vectra, thumbs up and horn honked to the Pacific lads en route to more wild scrapes on a summer’s afternoon.

After the innings break, on a quick outfield and with one very short square boundary a strong St Clements batting line-up will have fancied their chances of chasing down the total as they began their response in aggressive fashion.

Pacific’s opening bowlers Sam Howes and Arsalan Syed were more than equal to the challenge, though, and by bowling tight lines gave – in a possible satirical nod to warders at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center – the top order enough rope to hang themselves.

Fail to pay due respect to Pacific pacemen at your peril. A series of rash shots, induced by tidy bowling, and fine catches throughout the innings (take a bow Rajkumar, Siddiqui, Mehta, Sapp, Syed and Gingell) meant only one St Clements batsman (Afghan with 44) went beyond 20.

After the early wickets Pacific always looked ahead of the game despite a couple of frustrating partnerships and change bowlers Gingell, who soon found his feet and took two important debut wickets, and Sapp eased any fears of an unlikely comeback.

The St Clements lower order fought admirably, with No 11 smashing a couple of boundaries, but were well short when Mark Mehta came on to wrap up the game with an off-spinner the batsmen edged high to Gingell.

The last word on an eventful day should go to skipper Chasseaud who admitted to feeling nerves as he walked to the crease seven runs short of Steve Lay’s 9,707 runs and second place in the Wisden statistical cricketing record book scoring list.

He left the crease 81 runs ahead of Lay, and 520 runs behind Jon Webley’s 10,308, a total Chasseaud could even have hopes of passing in 2019. Watch this space!