On a beautiful sunny day at a well-populated London Fields, Pacific arrived after three Saturdays without a fixture to play last season's league champions St Clements. Skipper Tim was determined to bowl and elected to do just that after winning the toss.

Noor opened the bowling for Pacific and had endeared himself to the players before the game began by bringing 2 boxes of Madris to make up for not getting 2 jugs for his 2 5-fers this season. Opener Arfan played a few loose, aerial shots which evaded fielders whilst Arslan, who has previously scored runs against Pacific, looked more assurred. After 2 overs, vice-skipper Toby brought himself off and was replaced by Luke but the openers enjoyed the pace on the ball and were finding the boundary with regularity as St Clements managed to get to 50 within 7 overs. Luke had the last laugh though deceiving Arfan with a slightly slower yorker that hit the base of the stumps. 

Noor, despite bowling a brilliant spell, went wicketless but managed to grab a run out of his own bowling - helped in part by some shoddy running - with an alert piece of fielding. This brought skipper Afghan to the crease who was looking to be aggressive, using his feet to the spinners and sweeping well. Arslan made his way to 50 and was looking to accelerate before Rowan coaxed him into a loose shot which was well snaffled by Benny B at backward point. 

Their Number 5, Seth came in looking the part, wearing a white shirt and blue trackies. At this point, St Clements looked to up the run rate and were hitting balls to and over the boundary. Toby Jarvis returned after spending a good 20 overs sledging and winding the oppo up and managed to get Afghan to mistime a shot to Daniel Humphrey at cover. Mack Jendel then got in the act managing to get Seth to hit to Daniel on the boundary before a third batsman was also caught by Daniel. There's a lesson: don't hit the ball in the air to Daniel (We'll ignore the two drops he was responsible for in this innings; sorry, Rowan!). 

Tim brought Daniel on for the last 2 overs and he managed to grab three wickets, all bowled. It could - and we think, should - have been 4 when Noor grabbed a sensational catch at long-on through the trees but as the ball flicked the leaf on the way into Noor's hands, the umpire signalled six. St Clements finished on 308-9. Shoutout to Kaleem who kept wicket fantastically, ably supporting the bowlers and restricting his count to 3 byes. 

A quick turnaround saw Tristan & Notorious BOC go out and match the attacking intent of St Clement's openers looking to punish anything loose in line or length which numerous boundaries being hit through the covers that Ian Bell would've been proud of (maybe an overexaggeration but still). Pacific raced to 50 and looked really good. St Clements were hindered as their opening bowler had split his finger so they required a sub fielder, wearing jeans. One of their opening bowlers was swiftly replaced by Arslan, who gained a bit more control of the innings, and the zippy opening bowler from the other end, Seth was beginning to find his line and length, castling both Tristan and BOC in quick succession bringing Kal & Daniel in. Daniel was particularly grateful to BOC who said 'Watch out for his good ball!' Cheers, Ben. 

Kal was batting with the knowledge that he had to leave at 6 for his surprise birthday party ... so was batting with a sense of urgency but St Clements were doing really well at stifling the runs with tight bowling lines and good support in the field restricting Kal & Dan to 1s and 2s instead of 4s. Both batsmen were looking to innovate as much as possible - Kal looked to slog-sweep, hitting the midwicket boundary whilst Daniel reverse-pulled their off-spinner with little cover behind point on the offside. Kal knowing that time was running out, for both himself and Pacific, aimed a long one over cow but was bowled for a well-made 37. Daniel followed soon after hitting a full toss straight to the fielder. Benny B fresh from his match-winning 61 the previous week looked to continue where he left off hitting a boundary with his 2nd ball. Sadly, he was caught and bowled by a fine diving effort leaving Pacific 5 down.

Luke aimed a couple of nice shots to the boundary before hitting one into the trees for six. He was looking to be proactive with his running and hit one to the right of cover - the sub fielder in jeans - who plucked a hand out, grabbed the ball and threw it in to the non-striker's end resulting in Luke short of his crease. Noor looked to marshal the tail whilst bringing some of his LMS hitting prowess to the game, including a big six and some lovely switch-hits but the final few wickets fell with Pacific 73 runs short. 

A valiant effort against a good side and many beers were enjoyed afterwards at the Old Ship, and presumably Kaleem had a great party!