Report by Daniel Mortlock:

Having lost of our first match against The Cavendish this year to rain, we lost this one to the fact that, apparently, all their players had gone on holiday - their organiser e-mailed with the increasingly and depressingly common "We currently only have 5 players" message, so that was that, at least for this opposition . . .

. . . but the advent of the Remnants WhatsApp group has meant that such situations are potentially salvageable even with only a four days to play with. And, sure enough, within a few hours Chris had said he thought he'd be able to get a side together, and Taz had suggested a game against the "Gentlemen of Cambridge" (of which he may or may not be one) . . .

Report by Daniel Mortlock:

The day dawned hot and sunny, so much so that the Met Office was busy putting out extreme heat warnings. And this held for Cambridge in particular - the maximum temperature ended up being 28. There was the chance of some thunderstorms in the evening, but these didn't look likely to be too threatening . . .

. . . so it was a bit of a surprise to get a message from the Gentlemen's representative suggesting an early cancellation. While there was a big storm mid-afternoon it was brief (if heavy) and Dave confirmed, as expected, that the ground was dry and the covers on. With the Gentlemen thus reassured a new thread started up on the WhatsApp group, with people posting competing photos of brewing clouds that were then trumped by videos of heavy rain.

All this seemed at odds with the train ride up from London, which showed the English countryside at its summer finest, even if the skies were a bit moody . . . until the heavens erupted the moment the train pulled into Cambridge. Even before the doors opened there was the ping of doom: a text from Dave saying that the game was up. A flurry of texts followed, after which there was nothing for it but to hop on a train back to London, with reduced hopes not of playing cricket, but of avoiding all the "overhead wire problems" that were turning "on times"s into "cancelled"s faster than you could say "delay repayment" . . . although the journey back was as fine as on the way - it clearly hadn't rained at all in places like Hitchin or Meldreth.