Refreshingly, the match day group chat wasn’t filled with talk about the possibility of rain. Instead talk of baguettes, Indian takeaways, homemade smashed burgers and Mr Porter articles from 2018, featuring this week's opposition, took center stage.  

Tim was first to arrive and was waiting under one of London fields many London Plane trees, estimated by Tim to be “at least a couple of hundred years old”. He wasn’t far off. In and around 1860, after the park came under the supervision of the Board of Works (the unelected predecessor to the LCC), it was necessary to flatten and level the surface of London Fields. It was sown with fresh grass and the well-known lines of Plane trees were planted. These expansive city slickers now provide, not only shade, but exciting topics for match reports of amateur cricket clubs. I can only imagine how boring match reports from 1802 (the first recorded game to be played on LF) to 1860 would have been without these majestic wooden beasts in situ. 

More Pacificos arrived, as 1pm drew nearer and the footballers dispersed, the reality that we were playing the coolest team in London set in. The excitement was palpable in the Pacific camp, so keen to impress our cool opposition, we conducted some fielding practice right in front of the Passage (previously Bloody Lads) camp, making sure to whack as many balls as possible at our star fielder Rowan, who caught just about everything. 

With the oppo now very much impressed by our athletic ability, they were keen to see more as soon as they could. Toss done and we were bowling.

With a wealth of sledging material in the chirp bank and another dodgy Hackney council wicket to take advantage of - it wasn’t a bad thing that we were fielding first. If things had started to go awry, it wouldn’t have been long before a comment was made about the previously mentioned Mr Porter article. Luckily, for the Passage, Noor bowled their star man, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, with a straight one on the 3rd ball of the game and, collectively, we realised that the Passage were more than capable of capitulating without us having to say anything. In typical Noor fashion, he went on to take a further 4 wickets, securing himself another fifer. As the 5-15 off 8 overs suggests, it was another unplayable spell of bowling. 

Ben OC’s dynamic fielding the week before had obviously inspired the PCC and a well-disciplined fielding performance saw us chasing 90 to win. This would soon go up to 96 after 3 overs of our batting innings, an interesting umpiring performance. Where’s Bas when you need him?

After a 20 minute break, pads were on and the openers strolled out to the middle confident that their ability with the bat would make light work of this subpar target that the Passage had set us. Tristan made light work of the openers and in no time at all knocked off 38% of the runs himself as wickets fell around him. Tristan eventually fell and the PCC were 52-4. Kaleem and Noor steadied the ship and with only 8 required to win, when Toby came out to bat, the pressure was off. With Kal’s words of “just see the last 2 out” falling on deaf ears, Toby proceeded to smack the next ball back over the bowlers head for 4, a quick tap of the bat on a half volley length and a comment along the lines of “keep it there fella” the clearly rattled bowler, proceeded to the push the next one down the leg side, Toby merely helped it along its way and the ball trickled over the boundary at fine leg for 4 more, game won. 

The small but fervent fan base of the Passage had dispersed. Only a few of their players remained. As they sat in a circle, tugging at the grass, with incredulous looks on their faces, we wondered whether what they had said in the Mr Porter article about ‘typically being happier than the winning team’ was in fact true.