Weather: sunny, apart from a smattering of parakeets, 747s and helicopters.

Pitch: petulant, wholly unpredictable bounce, a horror show for the bats.

It is a truth university acknowledged, that a single Villager in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of directions to the ground. This was very much the case for this fixture, with the vast majority of players making a complete hash of navigating their way around Barnes. Whilst many struggled to locate the correct square on the correct ground, Mr Morgans managed to locate the wrong train and found himself in Richmond.

Hence it was a slightly delayed toss, which Mr Bowman lost leading to the Village “having a field” first up. We led with a Kiwi double-header (don’t Google that) with Mr Bowman bowling himself at one end and Mr Boa at t’other.

The Constrictor set to work, with an excellent spell of skiddy pace that caused all kind of havoc on a pitch which quickly proved itself to be more unpredictable than George Michael’s parking. He was unlucky not to get more wickets, as potential catches were juggled and flew through behind the wicket. So Mr Boa elected to take the fielders out of the equation, drawing first blood by clean bowling Tony for 13.

Mr Morgans – just arrived and still applying his shoes – got very close to pouching a stunner at gully off Mr Bowman, but it was not to be.

Mr Bowman then got his man, drawing a leading edge from Moshin which went up and down and into the safe gloves of Mr Hindle behind the stumps. Next to go back in the hatch was Max, who simply could not handle Mr Boa, duly serving up a catch to first slip which was scraped off the turf by Mr Pitcher. Mr Boa posted figures of 2-26 off 5, which does not truly reflect what a tidy spell this was.

Mr Rahat was brought in to the attack and bowled Aqveel who had posted a quick-fire 28, and at the other end Mr Gupte was finding some tweak – too much for Kishere, who was bowled.

The oppo seemed to be in a bit of a rush and they started slapping villagers around for a few runs, including some sixes. This was surprising given that the match was pencilled in as a 40 over affair before our collective agoraphobia led to the delayed start and a revised figure of 35 each way. Maybe they knew something we did not…

A few overs before drinks is, of course, Mr Louse time. It would be an excellent spell from Mr Millipede, with an early chance being put down in the deep by Mr Rahat but then the wickets started tumbling. First, Dinesh was well caught at midwicket by Mr Naz – a high, loopy catch, the sort that often goes awry, but not this time. Zain was Mr Woodhouse’s next victim, offering up a simple catch to Mr MoN at gully. Finally, last to go for this 10-man KCCC outfit was captain Pramod, who looked handy, and was unlucky to edge one through to Mr Hindle, who was standing up and took it on the chest, juggled it a bit, and then held on.

Mr Louse had cleaned up the tail in six overs, with three wickets for a minimalistic 16 runs, and we had limited the KCCC to 157. Spirits were high in the Village camp at tea before Mr Hindle and Harty were sent out to face the music.

It would be a short knock for Mr Hindle, who had not really settled when he nicked one off Ruky before troubling the scorer. This brought Mr Morgans to the crease to join Mr Harty in what may be a battle for the highest averaging Village bat this season. Mr Harty was keen to make inroads on the Welshman,  and shot a relatively quick-fire 35 including 5 boundaries and a six before putting a leading edge up in the air which was safely taken by the wicketkeeper.

Mr Marrow came out, also maybe with his average on his mind as much of the chat on the boundary surrounded the importance of runs late in the season for Villagers already thinking about the AGM. One would imagine that he was hoping for more than the 15 he clocked up before being clean bowled by the spinner Zain, who was finding plenty of turn off the pitch combined with the completely unpredictable bounce.

Mr Choudhury was Zain’s next victim, calmly watching one straight on to the top of his off peg. Mr Morgans was still going strong at one end, but the Village needed someone to shore up the other if we were going to make it. Mr Boa and Mr Example had no luck, with the pitch still doing allsorts they both fell to catches off the bowling of Max.

Mr Bowman strode out to the wicket, and we were looking for a captain’s innings to get us home, teetering on 101-6 at this point. We sank into deeper trouble though when Mr Morgans, who had played very well to stay around for so long on this wicket, was caught behind off Max for 24.

Mr Rahat was next up and became Zain’s next victim, bamboozled by the spin he too appeared to let one go which went on to hit his stumps. Supported by Mr Woodhouse, Mr Bowman moved the Village on to 129, and just for a moment it looked like maybe we could scrape up to the target, but when Mr Paul was bowled by Kishory for 13 the game appeared to be up.

Out came Mr Pitcher hoping to hang around and let Frank do the work, but the opening bowler Zeeshan came back into the attack and claimed revenge on Mr MoN when he gloved through to the keeper, leaving the Village all out for 132 and Mr Louse not out on 4, which he believes to be his second highest knock for VCC.

All in all a disappointing result, but given the wicket was a bit of a shocker to say the least, it was always going to be a low scoring game.

Difficult to award Man of the Match and Village Idiot as no-one really stands out in either category. Mr Harty and Mr Morgans both got runs, Mr Boa bowled very well indeed and was unlucky not to get more wickets, but it’s that column which counts, therefore MotM goes to Mr Craig for his 3-16 off 6 including a rare Village maiden.

Village Idiot is a hard pick. Apart from one dropped catch, we looked strong in the field. Several Villagers suffered at the hands of spin, so it’s an off-the-field incident which bags the award: Mr Morgans for doing a Mr DI, arriving 25 minutes late having caught one of the fast trains between Vauxhall and Richmond that does not stop at Barnes.