Word reaches me from the Thames Valley that one of the stars of the Adelaide series recounted at dreary lengths by your author has made his career best score. My hearty congratulations to Danno on his innings of 94 against, one presumes, Kidmore End. Word also reaches me of feats of derring-do by the Aussie Bennett, who must have created a mental picture of facing Anderson, Broad et al in making 151 not out in another fixture. I’ll bet he’s still scared to wake up to see what pictures he might face… Here’s one for you, Aussie…

I miss tour, but not that much. I’ve never scored a bean on tour, and nor would I be likely to as the demon drink renders me particularly useless the following day. I think I once got an extremely pedestrian 30 odd at Kidmore End, but it wasn’t worth writing home about. My lot go on about me “pulling ladders up” and “looking after myself” after I did not return to the crease when a game was on the line at Shiplake College. The small matter that I’d top edged a chest high beamer into my head was of not enough significance to engender any understanding from my so-called “team mates”. I retired from the Old Jos soon after. That and being fired on field as captain by a number of the players and made to field at deep point and deep third man against Chessington a few weeks later did it for me.

So congratulations to Danno. A pity he couldn’t get the three figures because no man deserves it more for all the work he has put into the club. I must admit there is a pang of envy here, and an initial thought is try to get fit for next season and see if I can still do it, but that sounds much too much like hard work and I’d much rather sit on my fat rump and moan about life than field (very badly).

However, I must admit to some doubts about the truth of this story, because the same missive says Sir Peter got 43. That stretches even my bounds of credibility.