Saturday morning reminded the team (or me at least) why we enjoy playing cricket: glorious sunshine, first game of the season on a grass pitch and away from Wray, everyone turned up on time(ish) and there were even supporters present (thanks for the support Mr and Mrs Gane). Before the toss, the bowlers did a quick pitch inspection and all agreed “on the stumps, let the pitch do the work…" 

Having lost the toss, Pacific CC were put in to bat by St Clements on a pitch which looked like a typical April, English green top. Opening the batting, Toby and JD set to work blunting St Clements opening pace attack. The variable bounce from both ends made batting difficult but the openers played well to set us up for what looked, at 76 for 0, to be a decent score. Especially as St Clements occasional wayward lines left some of us thinking that they had not read the pitch like we had and they had not come up with the plan “on the stumps, let the pitch do the work..”

With both openers gone, Pacific’s middle order stroke players (with the notable exception of Tom Gane) struggled to marry their naturally aggressive styles with the continued variable bounce and, with 114 on the board, the eighth wicket brought the skipper to join Tom Gane at the wicket and the team looking at sub 130 total - it turns out one or two St Clements bowlers had arrived at, and were sticking to a similar plan. However, some solid defence and powerful counter attacking from both Tim and Tom wrestled some much needed momentum back in Pacific’s favour and we posted 180+, giving us a defendable total considering the pitch. Despite some strong individual batting performances, Extras top scored with 50 - again convincing us that (some of) St Clements’ bowlers had failed to stick to the plan “on the stumps, let the pitch do the work…”

Opening the bowling, Tom Gane continued his excellent performance by claiming the wickets of both opening batsman and the momentum again looked to be swinging in Pacific’s favour. However, St Clements’ numbers 3 and 4 batsman took advantage of Pacific’s bowlers inability to stick to the simple plan "on the stumps, let the pitch do the work…”. By the time Tim and Joe Deighan came on to bowl and both kept it tight and looked dangerous, the damage had been done and St Clements reached the required total with nearly 9 overs to spare.

There were a number of positives to be taken from the game: Tom Gane’s sparkling performance with both bat and ball, perhaps spurred on by having supporters present who had traveled all the way from Wales (thanks again for the support Mr and Mrs Gane); a solid opening partnership; an uncharacteristically lively and tight fielding standard throughout - possibly inspired by an actual fielding warm up session lead by the Siddiqui brothers prior to going out to field; Eppy’s dance moves. But, in order to turn decent performances into wins at Springfield we need to either bowl on the stumps and let the pitch do the work… or come up with a new plan.

Match report by Will Gingell