| Sunday 2nd July 2017 vs Pacific C.C. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wash blown away by Pacific breezes | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Washington C.C. |  |
216-7 (37.1 overs) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pacific C.C. | |
217-7 (40 overs) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Scoop le Fix reporting from the scene of the battle .... Washington let a winning position slip on Sunday as they succumbed to a three wicket defeat at the hands of old rivals Pacific. In one of the most dramatic matches played between the Clubs, Pacific looked down and out at 50-6. However, a wonderful century from Ben Stockton (139 no) turned the game on its head, and the visitors overhauled their target of 216 with three overs to spare. It was, as skipper Clinton Dugmore said afterwards, a ‘rollercoaster of a game’. Washington batted first and lost Matthew Cragoe (1) and Mark Molloy (14) early on, but an excellent partnership of 104 for the third wicket between Aff Naseem (61) and the skipper (40) steadied the ship. It was a particularly fine performance from Naseem who looked in great touch from the first. His compact style was ideally suited to a surface on which the ball was still doing something early on. He struck 10 boundaries and it was a shock when he holed out in the 30th over. Washington then – quite simply – collapsed: 139-3 became 147-8 as Aftab Akram (4), Brian Wingfield (0), Stuart Marsh (0) and Max Murrain (1) came and went. An early tea beckoned, but Richard Creed (27) and Toby Mariner (29no) took the fight back to Pacific. In a frenzied onslaught of hitting and scampering they amassed 69 runs for the 9th wicket and took Washington’s total to the comparatively respectable heights of 216-9. The talk at tea was that Wash could have done with an extra 30, but within a few overs of Pacific’s innings starting, all such thoughts were forgotten as the bowlers tore through the top order. Max Murrain effected an imaginative run out to remove Duncan (11) and then Creed (4-33) capitalized on the opening with a stunning spell. His four-wicket burst included two classic dismissals – the batsmen caught at the wicket when driving at a ball pitching just outside off stump and moving slightly away: Akram pouched both chances with alacrity. When Marsh (2-55) brought one back to flick the top of opener Mullens’ off stump, and then held a return catch from Soden, deceived by a slower ball, Pacific were 7-85 and the Wash seemed on course for a straightforward victory. But that was almost as good as it got for the home side. Stockton found solid support from his skipper Siddiqui (18 no) and with a minimum of effort began his destructive work, almost casually placing a series of flicks and pushes into the spaces between the fielders and regularly finding the boundary. He gave two half chances – Mariner twice galloping across vast distances and just failing to hold the catch – but ultimately Wash had no answers to the challenge he posed, and the game slipped from their grasp as Pacific completed one of the great cricketing comebacks. MoM Richard Creed.
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