Quotations from P G Wodehouse are copyright of, and reprinted by permission of, the Trustees of the Wodehouse Estate © 2012 The P G Wodehouse Society (UK)

Gold Bats only win the silver medal at Dulwich

by Patrick Kidd

The Society's cricket team lost their match against the Dulwich Dusters at PG Wodehouse's old school Dulwich College.

Jeeves would have disapproved of a cricket match being completed within three hours (although his master, Bertie Wooster, would have delighted in the excellent spread laid on at half-time), but the demands of work and school curriculum meant that there was only time for a Twenty20 match when the Gold Bats played the masters of Dulwich College.

The annual fixture brings a good smattering of spectators to the pretty south London ground - where the name "Wodehouse PG" can be seen in the gold-engraved first XI for 1900 on a wall of the pavilion - but most of them come just for the tea, an obscene anthology of sandwiches, cakes, scones groaning beneath the weight of jam and cream, and at least 20 sausage rolls per person. No wonder the Gold Bats were slightly hesitant in the field as they attempted to defend a total of 114 for nine, and capitulated with five overs unbowled.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The match began with anxious looks to the heavens and muttered imprecations that the rains that had disrupted play in the tennis at Queen's that afternoon would steer well clear of Dulwich. Mr Wilcox and Mr Heard opened the batting for the Gold Bats, but were parted in the first over when the Dulwich strike bowler, Mike, uprooted Wilcox's off stump.

Mike would go on to record the excellent analysis of two for five in his two overs, but the Gold Bats tucked in to the lob bowling from the other end as Heard and Savage added 21 for the second wicket. Heard became Mike's second victim after hitting some lusty blows, and although Hill made 20 and Miller 14, the Bats looked in danger of being bowled out for under 100 before the ninth-wicket pair of Lloyd and Rush put on 23 in four overs.

A smallish total was made harder to defend by the unsporting way in which the Dusters came out seemingly determined to make the runs in as few overs as possible. Maybe they were just keen to get back to the bar and those left-over sausage rolls. Jackson's two overs were hit for 21 and Wilcox conceded 16, although he did pick up the wickets of both openers. Your writer, who had not batted, stemmed the tide a little, taking one for nine in two overs, and there was some excellent aggressive bowling from Heard, who took one for five but could have had more wickets if only the batsmen had been able to lay willow on the Exocets he whistled past their outside edges.

The inevitable capitulation came in the 15th over and the teams decamped to the pavilion to celebrate with a few punnets of strawberries. The Gold Bats may have lost the match, but the rewarding streaks of Dulwich turf up various trouser legs suggested enthusiasm if not ability in the field.

The following weekend's match against the Sherlock Holmes Society at West Wycombe fell victim to the wettest June in UK history. It won't be re-arranged.

Patrick Kidd writes for The Times newspaper. His online Times blog can be found here.