A quick return visit to North Middx CC following the loss there in June & it was deja vu & another heavy defeat was re-enacted with depressing similarity. First use of a hard even bounced pitch failed to see off useful rather than unplayable bowling attack. At 31-4 a defendable total seemed a long way away indeed.
At 100-8 there was a real danger that the game would be over by tea. Sean Hill intrioduced his occassional bowlers & initially Lucius Faisal & later James Smith were the 2 who did take advantage. The latter of which adding a most useful 49 runs partnership with James Gleadow to reach what had seemed an unattainable target.
After the tea interval, the fielding & bowling had to be better & all seemed to be involved in a match again when Darryl Roberts' & James Gleadow's opening spells caused real consternation. They regularly induced inside edges, leading edges, outside edges & the batsmen played & missed with regularity. Even the level of chat started to approach what had preceeded it in the first innings much to the consternation of previous perpertrators. One such diversion was the prelude to a wicket with Roberts fully fired up & immediatly finding the edge of Peter Demitri's bat going into Chris Atkin's bread basket at second slip. At 31-1 after 12 overs there was now the prospect of a close game. Sadly for Pacific, that was the highlight. First change, Paul Irons' outside edge was found with James Smith's first ball which then disected keeper & slip to much consternation. You do not give Paul Irons second chances & he made hay.
Captain Rob Bastin did his best to try all options & & even Harris who had never fully settled was able to kick on when his outside edge was also spurned off Chris Atkin.
The fielders stuck at it but the bowlers plugged away more in hope than expectation & it came as no great surprise that no further wicket fell as the lack of belief undermined what had been a fine ground fielding display & the winning runs trickled through legs to the boundary with nearly 8 overs to spare.
Not a good day at the office for most
XIs:- Chris Atkin, Rob Bastin*, Jai Rajaraman, Lucius Faisal, Ben Gibson, James Gleadow, Matt Holliday+, Peter Hollman, Shayne Rees, Darryl Roberts, & James Smith. Reserves aree:-Aroon Korgaonkar & Moses Hutchinson-Pascal.
