As Pacific arrived at Springfield Park on what would be the start of a very hot bank holiday weekend there was a unanimous agreement that "It's well hot." "Might be too hot." With three Pacific games scheduled for the weekend, the team was down to only ten men. This made the first task of the day crucial. The top order was tasked with persuading, pleading and praying, that skipper Tim, made the correct choice at the toss. As if it was destiny, Pacific won the toss and elected to bat. Jack H and BOC opened proceedings. Despite a threatening first over of steep bounce and seam the pitch quickly flattened. The handful of sunbathing spectators were greeted to a collection of glorious leg glances from BOC, who was much relieved to have a partner less keen on running him out than the week prior. Early into proceedings Jack H despatched Passage’s overly zealous Off-Spinning opening bowler for 4 boundaries in an over. The tone of the innings was truly set. After a well paced 62 run opening partnership, BOC fell to an unfortunate LBW. Once again adding to the wealth of evidence as to why you don’t play spin off the back foot on park pitches. This brought Dan (the injured all-rounder) to the crease. What followed was a 165 run partnership, with two contrasting batting styles. The ever busy Dan run consistently hard between the wickets. Despite an attempted BBQ, which would have been apt given the weather, Jack H dealt predominantly in boundaries and preferred to decline the optional twos. Both took advantage of Passage’s first and second change attack. The only slight hinderance to proceedings was the constant delay from the Passage Keeper, who meticulously set, changed and reset his field every over. And the Passage attack’s abstract understanding of what a wide is. Nevertheless, the decision at the toss was proving the correct one, as Passage’s leg spinner amidst the heat and sweat bowled a flurry of over the waist no balls. As Pacific entered the final 10 overs and attempted to up the rate, Jack H fell for 117 and Dan for a well made 53. Enter Zafar Ali. Evidently inspired by the start of the T20 blast, Zafar hit a blistering 43 off 26, which included the shot of the day: a glorious six over extra cover. With some helpful boundaries from Seb and some selfless running from Pacific debutant Shaheer, Passage were set 301 to win. JK set the tone brilliantly with two wickets in his first over. Zafar kept the momentum up by cleaning up Passage’s number 4, who had livened up the afternoon with some interestingly executed scoops. Seb and Zafar continued to pluck away at the Passage middle order, with Seb’s LBW owing a sun stricken umpire a Kevin De Bruyne worthy assist. (It looked high). Debutant Shaheen showed some glimmers of promise but Passage battled hard and boundaries flowed reach to 139-5 in just over 20 overs. This in part was due to Pacific being weakened further to nine men as Burnham, clearly inspired by Arsenal’s premier league win, combined keeping and football to head a sharp rising delivery with his nose. In what was looking like a potentially long evening was quickly curtailed by the spin twins Jack Mendel and skipper Tim. Despite an argument over a “no ball” that was given not out, out and then not out again (with the MCC Laws googled in between). For the avoidance of doubt, it is this authors opinion that the ball in question was clearly out, the batsmen’s protest must have been inspired out of pure embarrassment at missing a thigh high full toss. Or was it the guile of Tim’s well flighted delivery. Nonetheless, Mendel and Tim paired up beautifully to break the Passage middle order partnership and dismiss the long Passage tail. The services of Riz, who arrived to help field, were barely needed as the game was wrapped up with “16! 16! At a push, 17!” overs to go. In the battle of the PCC it was the Pacific, that came out on top, thereby proving the wise words of W.G Grace: "When you win the toss you bat 9 times out of 10 without question, on the 10th tune you think about bowling and then bat anyway."

Pacific v Passage Toss won by Pacific

Pacific innings  R  M  B  4  6 Ben O'Connor   lbw    27  0  31  5  0   Jack Houlihan   c    117  0  99  20  0   Daniel Humphrey   c    53  0  71  7  0   Zafar Ali   run out    43  0  26  5  1   Ben Burnham †      4  0  12  0  0   Seb Maltz   c    12  0  4  1  1   Shaheer Safdar   run out    5  0  5  1  0   Jahangir Khan   not out    0  0  0  0  0   Tim Garrett   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0   Jack Mendel   did not bat    0  0  0  0  0    Extras (b 5, lb 1, w 25, nb 8) 39      TOTAL (40.0 Overs) 300

Fall of wickets:

Bowling  O  M  R  W

Passage innings  R  M  B  4  6 Leeson   c O'Connor b Khan   0  0  0  0  0   Lloyd-Hughes   b Khan   0  0  0  0  0   Tahir   b Ali   27  0  0  0  0   Bamford   lbw b Maltz   18  0  0  0  0   Bryce   c Burnham b Ali   0  0  0  0  0   Hudson*†   c Burnham b Mendel   29  0  0  0  0   McDonagh   not out    2  0  0  0  0   Zulu   b Mendel   0  0  0  0  0   Round   b Garrett   0  0  0  0  0   Udit   c & b Garrett   0  0  0  0  0    Extras (b 1, lb 0, w 15, nb 5) 21      TOTAL (22.4 Overs) 143

Fall of wickets:

Bowling  O  M  R  W    Jahangir Khan   5  0  23  2    Zafar Ali   5  0  39  2    Seb Maltz   4  0  32  1    Shaheer Safdar   3  0  33  0    Tim Garrett   2.4  0  7  3    Jack Mendel   2  0  8  2