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Updated: May 23, 2025
Sidney and I, and one or two others, scored well, although nothing like what our two champion stickers had done; and the whole of our second innings terminated for two hundred and eighty-eight runs, thus leaving the Inimitables no less than a hundred and ninety-one to get to tie us, and one more to win.
But now that the great travelling team of the "Piccadilly Inimitables" purposed paying a passing visit to our rural shades, it of course behoved the Little Peddlington Cricket Club to challenge the celebrated amateurs to a match, albeit we were so woefully weak from the absence of many of our best members, or else be for ever disgraced amongst the patrons of the noble game.
The bowling at the beginning was rather shady, the Inimitables not being accustomed to the ground, which our batsmen, of course, were perfectly familiar with; so runs got piled on in a way that raised our hopes pretty considerably, especially when Sidney Grant took Charley Bates's place that worthy having in his second over skied a ball that was immediately caught, sending him out for five runs, two singles and a three, or two more than he had totalled in his last match.
It was a wonder that such a small chap could send in the balls at the terrific speed he did, balls that set leg-guards and pads at defiance, and splintered one of the batsmen's spring-handled bats as if it had been match wood; but he did it. His last over in that first innings of the Inimitables, however, was the crowning point in his victorious career.
Young Black had scored by that time no less than eighty off his own bat, and Hardy forty-one, after being in to their own cheek exactly as long as the Inimitables' whole innings lasted. It was glorious, one hundred and eighteen without the loss of a wicket, and the bowling and fielding must have been good, as there were only seven extras all that long while our men had been in.
And a challenge having been sent to the Piccadilly Inimitables without delay, which they as promptly accepted, the match was fixed to come off, on our ground, of course, on the opening days of the ensuing week provided, as the secretary of our opponents' club, very offensively as we thought, added in a postscript to his communication, the contest was not settled on the first day's play.
The chariot beyond belongs to Melampous. The slaves in the red bombyx garments serve Hermias. They all belong to the society of 'Inimitables, and shared our banquets.
The bowlers of the Inimitables were on their metal now if they never were; but they bowled, and changed their bowling, in vain, for young Jemmy Black continued his brilliant hitting without any cessation, while Prester John remained on the defensive, except some very safe ball tempted him, until our score turned the two hundred in our second innings.
I fancy that was something like a feather in the cap of the Little Peddlington Cricket Club, although it was all owing to young Jemmy Black, whose bowling, when the Inimitables went in to make their final effort, was on a par with his magnificent batting.
He was over-ruled, however, on both points, much to his chagrin, as he was in the habit generally of getting his own way by bullying the rest, and he left the meeting in the greatest disgust, saying that he wouldn't play, and thus "make himself a party to the disgrace that was looming over the club," in their defeat by the Inimitables, which he confidently expected.
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