Custard adds flavour to first win of the season Waking up on a fine Saturday morning, I thought I would double check travel times. It took me a full two hours to make 13-mile journey from Hackney to the very beautiful enclave of Barnes in south London.

Today’s players included the now cult legend of Mr Custard who’s 105-mile journey from Bournemouth took half an hour less than mine! It really is a beautiful part of London and overall I think worth the crazy commute.

Roehampton were up for batting and we didn’t have a coin so I dispensed the toss.

Our bowling won us this game – probably the most controlled bowling I have seen from PCC in a long while. There wasn’t a weak point in the attack and that was reflected in the bowling figures.

Brett wiped out the top order with his hooping in-swingers, aided by me standing up to the stumps and keeping the batsmen back in his crease – a plan from yesteryear that still works. Three wickets fallen and then steps in Joe Deigan (check his outstanding figures out – probably should have bowled him through to get a 5-fer – sorry mate) and Harry Rix, both bagging three wickets apiece. Now the other notable player was the every youthful Sumant. He ended up bowling fourth change and the batsman thought here come the pies. Sumant duly removed him and Roehampton were all out for 152.

We had Tea – the first cricket Tea in nearly two years for the PCC faithful during these Covid times.

There has been a marked difference to the PCC approach to batting this year. We seem not to be scurrying about in the early overs getting pads on because of a top-order collapse. Again we had 40-run partnership by Tom and Jas that set the foundations of the chase. This included a glorious short-arm pull from ‘Our Kid’ into the bushes for six. Tom also looked comfortable and a great addition to our squad – and he can catch (took two)!

As usual we do need a bit of drama and it came. A mini collapse and we went to 98-5. Kaleem and I were able to rebuild and get PCC back on top. I was trying to teach the young Jedi the finer points of running and how to chase down a total in 10-run chunks. I am not sure he was that interested!

Kaleem was then out LBW and enter Sumant. He seemed a bit nervous so I started sledging him from the non-striker’s end and this seemed to get rid of the nerves and he banged a few and we were home. Our first win of the season was a true team performance. Special mention to Ahmed, who had his first bowl of the season and bowled through the pain of an open wound in his spinning finger. Credit to the bowlers!

Match report by Mutz Siddiqui

Roehampton Bats v Pacific Toss won by Roehampton Bats

Roehampton Bats innings  R  M  B  4  6 Es Davison   lbw b Custard   9  0  16  0  0   Sam Nelson   b Custard   9  0  13  0  0   Ali Maitland   not out    54  0  73  0  0   LDS DaSilva   b Custard   0  0  5  0  0   Nigel J   lbw b Rix   13  0  23  0  0   Paul Farthing   b Rix   3  0  1  0  0   Joe Smith Hendry   c Higginson b Deighan   1  0  4  0  0   Rob Thomson   c Higginson b Deighan   3  0  4  0  0   Leo Watson   b Kumar    30  0  41  0  0   Robin Maitland   b Deighan   3  0  4  0  0   Mark Evans   b Rix   1  0  3  0  0    Extras (b 11, lb 2, w 13, nb 1) 27      TOTAL (31.0 Overs) 152

Fall of wickets:

Bowling  O  M  R  W    Kaleem Luthra   6  0  27  0    Brett Custard   6  2  21  3    Harry Rix   5  0  17  3    Joe Deighan   4  0  26  3    Ahmed Hussain   5  0  35  0    Sumant Kumar   5  1  13  1

Pacific innings  R  M  B  4  6 Tom Higginson   b Davidson   16  0  24  3  0   Jasbir Basi   b Maitland   19  0  28  2  1   Harry Rogers   b Davidson   18  0  25  4  0   John Deighan   b Maitland   9  0  16  2  0   Brett Custard   lbw b Farthing   18  0  26  4  0   Kaleem Luthra   lbw b Farthing   21  0  33  3  0   Murtaza Siddiqui*†   not out    33  0  43  5  0   Sumant Kumar   not out    9  0  16  1  0   Joe Deighan   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Harry Rix   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Ahmed Hussain   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0    Extras (b 0, lb 0, w 8, nb 2) 10      TOTAL (34.5 Overs) 153-6

Fall of wickets:

Bowling  O  M  R  W