12:00 and the umpire's call of “play” to begin proceedings at a glorious Springfield Park was how BOC had dreamed up his PCC captaincy debut. 

Instead, he had been thrown into a nightmare as the news came through that the game was not at Springfield but at London Fields. What followed would make a call centre manager proud, as BOC hastily rang around and clarified the situation and informed his team of the late change. For once, the Pacific tradition of arriving later than the scheduled meet time was advantageous as a handful of the team could divert on route. 

It will be left to the upper echelons of PCC to lay the finger of blame and would be beyond this mere member’s pay grade to possibly comment. Although sources close to the incumbent skipper Tim have denied any charges of sabotage. And as we know, “if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit."

After an Uber, a toss called (and lost) over the phone, and momentary loss of the match ball, BOC’s PCC captaincy debut finally began. 

BOCball was in full flow as we started the innings with two mid-offs, a cover, a catching backward point and a slip and a gulley. The ploy worked. Balash, who bowled excellently, struck early with Riz taking a sharp catch at gulley. His efforts were soon backed up by Zafar (the true all-rounder) as Pacific made early inroads, and Riz took another stunner at gulley (only to be demoted to fielding a fine leg shortly after). 

The most heroic spell of the day came from Mark (Wood) Mehta. Despite a dubious start (3 full tosses that were deservingly punished) it is fair to say PCC have discovered a new seam bowling all-rounder to partner with a recovered Dan next season, as Mark picked up two well-deserved wickets and would have been afforded a third had Tristan managed to keep hold of a tough catch in deep. The less said about the Lincoln-Gordon’s fielding performance, the better - a truly rare blip in a usually spotless family fielding record.

A special mention needs to go out to Prasham (Pacific’s own MS Dhoni - if Dhoni stood back with a lid on) who kept it very tidy behind the stumps and took a sharp stumping. Unfortunately, he was robbed of two caught-behind dismissals in what can only be described as some interesting umpiring decisions - but more on this later. 

Steady wickets and an impressive 8-over spell from Jack Mendel and late wickets from Riz kept Bloomsbury down to an under par 193 off 37.2 overs. 

Now think of the great, heroic rousing speeches from history. Perhaps Henry V at Agincourt - “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers," comes to mind. Or Mel Gibson’s rendition of William Wallace in Braveheart. Even Churchill’s “We will fight them on the beaches.” 

BOC’s half time team talk couldn’t have been further from any of these. 

Instead, as Mendel took half the team’s meal deal orders, we were left with the quiet understanding that if we saw off the new ball and prevented an early somewhat classical Pacific collapse, the game would be ours. 

Before we unpack the second innings action, a few author’s notes are required. 

Without wanting to go all ManavGPT, I will state the following: 

• Law 2.9 Position of umpires: The umpires shall stand where they can best see any act upon which their decision may be required.

• Law 21.2 Fair delivery – the arm: For a delivery to be fair in respect of the arm the ball must not be thrown. 

With that out of the way, let’s resume the action with BOC taking strike against the new ball. In rather gloomy overheads and a tricky opening flurry, Tristan and BOC battled hard before BOC went back and was bowled by a lowey. 

With the opening bowlers seen off, Tristan faced up against Bloomsbury’s off-spinning side armer. In a rather clear-cut throw (see Law 21.2), Tristan was hit on the pad (while standing on leg stump) as the ball looked certain to miss another set of stumps. A fact that would have of been clear had the umpire actually been standing behind the stumps (as made obvious in Law 2.9). Nonetheless it was a shocker. And despite doing my best to alert the umpire to a clear throwing / chucking action, there was to be no Ross Emerson vs Murali repeats at London Fields. 

The rest of the innings was rather uneventful. Yours truly gloved a leg-side delivery to the keeper off the Bloomsbury golden arm or rather pie chucker in another embarrassing dismissal for 43, which left Dan and Zafar together to both hit sublime 50*s to secure a comfortable victory

This meant we could all shake hands and go our separate ways… 

Except in a fine display of shit bloke behaviour, the majority of Bloomsbury neglected the shaking hands part. 

While the BOC captaincy era may soon be quickly forgotten, like the Liberal Democrat’s Party Conference, BOCball had secured its first win. Albeit with the unfortunate consequence that, like many of the greats, the heavy toll of captaincy hinders a skipper’s personal returns.