After an initially sunny Bank Holiday weekend gave way to a rainy Sunday, that put paid to the club’s annual challenge against UCS Old Boys for the Lindridge-MacDougall cup, fears were raised that Monday’s friendly against Highgate CC at their lovely ground at the Sheperd’s Cote would also fall foul to the very wet conditions.

However, PCC would have the chance to play at what was our old stomping ground in years past for higher summer fixtures. Although there was an afternoon threat of rain, and at times the sky was somewhat foreboding, any real rain skirted away from the ground. On a pitch which screamed “bowl first”, PCC lost the toss but were put in the field anyway. This meant an opportunity for Jahangir and Toby Jarvis to ply their wares in rather verdant conditions. They certainly didn’t let the team down and were utterly miserly and JK chipped in with a couple of wickets in an exemplary display. Toby himself would not get the luck that he might have had on another day.In retrospect, this would be a difference.

Although the bowling would continue to be tight, once he was in the young Highgate opener (Antonazzi) found his form and would start opening his shoulders to good effect. Korgaonkar would be one to suffer with a couple of sixes disappearing to the short, straight boundary in otherwise what was not a terrible performance. Soden would come on and bowl very well getting Antonazzi to nick off in a fine spell, extracting bounce and movement. This stopped a fair bit of momentum and Soden would be followed up by Humphrey coming on to wrap up the tail and Highgate would be all out for 137. This was the opportunity for PCC to tuck in to the wonderful tea that Highgate CC had traditionally produced including Thai mixed rice.

The response started steadily enough with Mutz and Jamie Bomford dealing with not particularly friendly conditions. However, when Mutz would depart bowled for 9, it should be said that the challenge of the bowling conditions would be exposed against a team with some pretty respectable seam bowling. Bomford would play some nice shots and appeared to have a grasp of those conditions, but when he did get out to26, it should be said that any real momentum in the innings disappeared. A clatter of wickets would fall and despite a valiant effort from Epstein, who scored a rather feisty 31, the innings would close with PCC finishing on 114 all out. Korgaonkar on getting 1 not out finally achieves his long held milestone of reaching 1k PCC runs.