Richmond's 1st XI extended their lead at the top of the Premiership with a 12 point win away at Finchley. Elsewhere the 2's had a bore draw against Finchley, the 3's a losing draw against Barnes and there were excellent wins for the 4's and 5's against Brentham and Lohana 3rd Xis.
At Arden Field, Finchley invited Richmond to bat and it was Ben Compton, on his return to the side after a some time, who dominated with an unbeaten 104 not out. Around him there were excellent contributions from Rob Gibson, Daniel Stanley and Greg King which enabled Richmond to declare on 292 for 7 after 58 overs. David Burton once again got Richmond off to an excellent start with three wickets before the spin of Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and Abdullah Nazir took over. Finchley's batting crumbled and the match was won by 178 runs. Abdullah finished up with 4 for 17.
At ODP Steve Bail was the star with the bat scoring 95. He received good support from Zain Bhaktar and Will Jenkins before some hard hitting from the tail took Richmond to a score of 264 all out off 50. Richmond reduced Finchley to 70 for 6 with 28 overs remaining but dropped catches, a wicket off a no-ball, stubborn defence and a lack of guile enabled Finchley's youngsters to hold out for the draw.
The 3's held on for a losing draw against Barnes. Our bowling and fielding were not, according to skipper Charles Scholefield, as good as it ought or might have been and the visitors recorded 261 all out. Richmond got a good start but lost wickets and were forced to hold on 9 down.
The 4's bowled Brentham 3's out for 168 and chased them down for the loss of 6 wickets. Fayed Fazaldin was the top scorer with 79. The 5's dismissed Lohana 3's for 174 and won by 5 wickets. Dhruva Preston and Umar Wani were the heroes with unbeaten half-centuries. So after 11 weeks, the 1's are top of the Premier League, the 2's are 4th, the 3's and 4's are both 5th. The 5's are in second place.