League Saturday 7 was another of great frustration for Richmond. Matches may have been played in the most glorious of weather but results were less pleasing with draws for the 1's and 3's but defeats for the 2's, 4's and 5's.

The 1's travelled to Brondesubury, won the toss and elected to bat. Ryan Higgins and Ben Compton got us off to a flyer and, by lunch, the pair had put on 205 before Higgo was run out on the stroke of the break. On the resumption, we pressed on with Abhishek Jhunjhunwala powering his way to 43 and Compo reaching 80. With an early declaration in sight, the middle order batted aggressively with Greg King hitting 37 before Alex Griffiths brought the innings to an end with the score on 326 for 6 after just 54 overs.

Bron got off to a bright reply reaching 110 for 3 before deciding that a draw was the best that they could achieve. A 4th wicket partnership of 109 spanned the best part of 30 overs and despite a late flurry of wickets and Richmond managing to bowl 2 extra overs, the match resulted in a stalemate. Abhi picked up 6 for 34 off 19 overs. The frustrating result left Richmond with 5 points which keeps them in 5th place, 25 points behind leaders Teddington.

The 2's lost skipper Si Elliott to an early morning ear infection but seemed to be progressing nicely with the bat - reaching 120 for 3 before a ridiculous collapse saw them dismissed for 164 off just 36.2 overs. Kshitij Desai with 55 and Sam Cheetham with 44 were the primary scorers. Early wickets for Jono Jones pegged Hampstead back and in the middle of the innings, they faltered further with Anirudh Muraly, KD, Neil Hemstalk and Charles Scholefield all picking up wickets. 9 down with more than 50 to get, Hampstead were dead and buried. However, Richmond by this stage were down to 10 men - one player having chosen to leave early to watch Guns and Roses - and slowly but surely Hampstead's final pair inched their way towards the target. There were plenty of LBW shouts - all turned down, some narrowly missed run-out opportunities, a dropped catch and a free nicks through the vacant slip area, but in the end, the match finished in the most bizarre circumstances. A huge LBW appeal, a shy at the stumps and 4 overthrows. It was all going on. The defeat leaves the 2's in 7th place.

The 3's invited Hampstead to bat first at the Newman and the top of the table side racked up 281 for 5 off 47. Richmond lost early wickets but were rescued by a ton from skipper Ben Rotheram. We ended on 216 for 5 and a losing draw which sees the 3's in the bottom two for the first time in many years.

The 3b's are also in the relegation places. Hornsey batted first and recorded 198. In reply Richmond only managed 138 despite an excellent 77 not out from newcomer Will Patterson.

The 5's were decimated by the late withdrawals and suffered accordingly losing to Twickenham 4's.

So all in all another poor Saturday. Availability remains a challenge and we can only hope that this improves dramatically in weeks to come. There is a lot of work to do for all sides to move up their respective leagues.