Sunday, June 29, was one of those days that linger in the memory, banishing for a time at least the thoughts of the rain and sleet we have so often come to expect in an English summer. As the man said, all Nature smiled. Sunshine and blue skies had come to England, busloads of tourists had come to the picturesque estate created by Sir Francis Dashwood at West Wycombe, a red kite had come to earn its fee from the English Tourist Board by circling slowly overhead while, down in the valley, Fashion, Elegance and Beauty had come to grace the cricket field. To cut a long story short, the Sherlock Holmes Society and the P.G.Wodehouse Society (UK) had assembled to play their annual cricket match.

      It was noted there were not quite so many parasols as in previous years, and spats were conspicuous by their absence, but it was, once again, a clear victory for the Sherlock Holmes Society in the Fashion Stakes. The Wodehouseans could only field 'our' umpire, Murray Hedgcock whose splendid high-crowned brown bowler, knotted neckerchief and boots combined Victorian dignity with historical accuracy. Such was his quiet air of superiority (he was the only man on the field who knew the rules we were meant to be playing to) that no one dared ask to see the time by the solid Albert timepiece that undoubtedly nestled beneath his white coat of office.

      The Wodehouseans batted first, with Oliver Wise as a stylish opener, and went on to make a splendid 129. Patrick Gilkes was clearly on his day. The highest scorer for the Wodehouse Society, he knocked up a solid 26, followed by Chris Read with a big-hitting 24 and Bob Miller, who played a solid captain's game to score 19.

      Lunch was taken just after one, and bottles were extracted from every conceivable device for keeping wine cool to accompany the picnics appearing from containers that ranged from superb Edwardian (vintage 1907) leather containers to Mr Tesco's ubiquitous plastic bags. It was during lunch that we welcomed our last spectator, Bill Franklin. With a base in America and a job in Norway, Bill's trips to and fro, by some strange chance, coincide surprisingly often with Wodehouse Society events. After one look at his height and superb physique, Bob Miller, the Wodehouse skipper, immediately tagged him as our No 11 batsman, but the arrival of the player originally selected meant we were denied the privilege of seeing cricket played the baseball way.

      One of the attractive features of the fixture is the bowling of a number of overs underarm, and it was during these, as in the recent match against Dulwich, that our secret weapon wreaked havoc among the opposition. Anxious to demonstrate to the American spectators the various ways in which batsmen could be dismissed, Robert Bruce, now acclaimed in the popular Press as 'Bob the Bowler', took three wickets in three overs, one stumped, one bowled and one caught. (Your scribe was hoping for an appeal when a batsman hit the ball twice but the Wodehouseans are too gentlemanly for that.)

      The Sherlock Holmes team rallied bravely after this onslaught of reverse demon bowling (the slower Robert bowled underarm, the more effective he was).The Sherlockians' Alistair Singleton led the way with a sparkling 27, and the match was clearly in the balance. However, the damage had already been done, and Chris Read demonstrated himself to be a powerhouse of a bowler, his speed and endurance drawing gasps from the admiring spectators. As a result, the best the Sherlockians could achieve was a score of 89.

      A splendid day, an excellent match concluding with a reminder from Murray Hedgcock of the comments made in The Cricketer many years ago by a certain undergraduate on the colours worn by Cambridge cricketers. It was noted that the gentleman concerned, now the distinguished captain of the Sherlock Holmes Society team, Peter Horrocks, had seen the error of his ways and had put his team into decent, God-fearing Oxford blue caps.

- Saltatrix