For what feels like the 48th day in a row, the heat is truly offensive. Even at 09:00, waking up in Shadwell, Leo Nieboer’s window gives out a dazzling sunlight and cracked earth below with heat-shimmers all over it — an ominous portent for a day so packed with potential discomforts and failures that he gets the sense it’ll have to be not traversed but sort of climbed, vertically.

Getting to the Griffin, which is devoid of any human life, Nieboer cannot access the clubhouse. The staff have left the wrong keys in the lockbox. So he sort of stumbles around, eyeballs sizzling, mumbling bad words to nobody in particular. He also can’t hear very well. After a straight week of jumping into Shadwell Basin, more or less living there, his ears are full of algae-ridden basin water, so everything sounds like it’s being said to him at great depths, every word in his direction coming out muffled and unclear.

But his eyes do work, thankfully, and he can see that our pitch for today looks a little like a cabbage patch. The mixture of insane heat and sporadic downpour has left lots of little weeds — clover looking things — all over the deck. Chris Butlin dutifully yanks them out, and asks Nieboer whether he can access the heavy roller.

It makes deciding what to do at the toss more challenging than one might think. In the end it doesn’t matter; Nieboer’s tossing record is worse than Scotland’s at this World Cup. The opposition skipper has a pained expression; he doesn’t know what to do either. He lets his gut decide. Ploughmans are batting.

With 14 minutes until play starts, one of Nieboer’s openers, Tom Merilaht, who averages 120 after about 10 games, is not here yet. He thought the game was at the DSG. Just as Nieboer starts to really panic, he notices Tom’s head poking over the fence that separates the Griffin from the velodrome, which is already droning away with its bells and stale PA announcements. He scales the wall, somewhat awkwardly, a little like those January 6 protesters, and promptly pads up.

It’s a sticky sort of affair, out in the middle. The pitch is low and slow, and the outfield is painfully turgid. Hitting boundaries is extremely challenging. After Leo Towers — fresh from a Pitbull themed party the night before — departs for 10, hitting a full toss back at the bowler, who has a strange penchant for screeching like a banshee at random junctures, Nieboer and Merilaht have to navigate a nasty spell of tight bowling. And no reward for when we do sometimes pierce the outfield. The pair cautiously add 62 runs in 17 overs before Nieboer departs for 16 (41), the score 85-2.

And it’s probably a good thing, actually, because the bowling’s a little easier now and Chris Butlin’s taking it apart, looking elegant and crisp, timing everything perfectly on his way to 42 (43). Merilaht, meanwhile, is totally f*cking unimpeachable. As Nicko Dowell points out, he just doesn’t get bored. Ever. His attitude towards every ball is exactly the same. He has so much time; he’s almost eerily calm, even when things aren’t going his way. It doesn’t seem to matter that he has, like, three shots. He plays them perfectly. He finishes on 118* (125). How Battersea will curse dropping him on 24.

Our new tea lady, Lee, comes over to drop off our Thai-flavoured mush. “I didn’t think you’d be so young and handsome!” she exclaims at Nieboer, making the young and handsome man blush. Nieboer considers proposing to her on the spot, securing a lifetime of attentive loving and pad kaprow for lunch every day. But that manic notion passes quickly; we’ve got some bowling to focus on.

There’s some nerves, heading into this one. Last week, at this very ground, we failed to defend 233. We bowled terribly. Now, defending 210, against a team higher than last week’s opponents in the table, there is naturally some trepidation at repeating the same shortcomings here, perhaps even giving the 2s, in turn, something of a complex. “These boys can’t defend shit!” they would murmur across Division 11 North.

But today is different. The bowling and fielding is spot on. Giordy Diangienda, the 2s leading bowler this season, sets the perfect tone, removing their dangerous opener. Damon Greeney, at the other end, gives them absolutely nothing to work with. By drinks, at 15 overs, they are 35-3. Everyone looks dangerous. Narvin Ganesh takes two wickets in an over, followed by a catch, loping across the long grass like some leopard lining up a gazelle. Nicko Dowell, despite the best efforts of their umpire — we actually had to negotiate for a caught behind, like some bloody diplomatic summit — bowls superbly, taking three wickets. Even Leo Towers, with his loopy stratospheric grenades, takes a wicket.

At the halfway point, the contest has lost its bite, a clear departure of the essence of absolute rage and intensity that hallmarked last week’s clusterf*ck, right up until the end. Giordy, fittingly, takes the final wicket in the 31st over, finishing with 3-9 and taking his club tally to 100 wickets. What a season this man is having.

“One day I hope to be as fast as Giordy,” Narvin jokes, as we walk off. Benny Cobbett, who has scored the entire game, presents us with a load of cold Madris, and life is good again.

Back at the DSG, it’s a bit of a party atmosphere. The 1s have also won, albeit not without certain pitfalls. There’s a lot of talk about their umpire for the day, who seemed mainly interested in giving LBWs and didn’t give an edge to first slip. “I could have caught it at second slip!” Dom Scott says.

Nieboer, Butlin and Michael Ainslie have a delicious shower. Butlin is full of songs. For Ainslie, who got a TFC, the song goes (to the tune of Yes Sir, I Can Boogie):

“Michael, Michael Ainslie,
Doesn’t bat or keep or bowl!
Michael, Michael Ainslie,
Doing nothing, all day long!”

For Nieboer, his chant goes: “He only showers at the basin, showers at the basin!”

We still have two and a half hours to kill before the England game, so Butlin launches into our full retinue of songs, including the new one for Tom Lonnen, which is so crude and fellatio focused that I shan’t type it down here. Duray Pretorius is laid flat on the floor with laughter, his face dangerously red.

The England game is a torpid, upsetting affair, for the most part. Nieboer isn’t really watching it. Instead him, Sean McGurn, Alice, and Butlin talk amongst themselves. Butlin is telling us about how, the other day, he saw a large man with all his buttons undone, his big gut protruding, buying beers, and thought: “Absolute bin.” But then saw the same man walking into a salon to get his nails done and, realising he was gay, did a total 180, and thought: “Oh, yeah, SLAY, bitch!” Other subjects included which England player we’d let go to town on us. We all put Jude Bellingham firmly at the top of our list.

Bellingham then scores, followed by Harry Kane. “Harry Kane licks the windows at the G” was Butlin’s response.

Getting home is something of an adventure. Nieboer leads Duray towards New Cross Gate via a Lime bike, tearing across roads and not indicating to poor Duray, who is clearly nervous at having such a deranged escort. They make it there in one piece. Duray purchases about 50 chicken wings and goes to work on them on the Windrush line. We start talking to a nice Irish lady called Millie, who has just moved to Mile End. Nieboer is having a very pleasant conversation with her, until Duray, in between wings, chimes in, joking about being in the diamond trade or child labour or something, and Millie, like Butlin earlier, does a total 180, going from vague amiability to intense antipathy. She wants nothing to do with us.

In any case, it’s turned out to be the perfect day: 40 points, a snog, one million jugs, and Tuchel’s brave brave boys finishing top of their group. Roll on next week, when hopefully I’ll be able to hear, in a rather crucial game against league leaders Southwark Park.