A History of Cricket at King Edward's School, BIrmingham

35 not out against S Whitehouse’s XI (out of a total of 210 for seven declared) on 7 July, and four days later took 121 off the Ratcliffe attack, KES declaring at 253 for seven. KES won both of these matches. Plowright and Hyde dismissed S Whitehouse’s XI for 100. Plowright with 6 for 17 shot out Ratcliffe for 37; they made 46 for four following on and so lost on first innings. Earlier in the season, Elwood had made 65 out of a total of 201, followed by 4 for 39, to defeat Wrekin by 106 runs. Wyatt finished the season with 639 runs – a new record; Elwood made 449, Plowright 321, Bryan 241 and Dudley 238. Bland did not quite match his form of the previous season. Plowright was the spearhead of the attack, with 45 wickets, supported by Elwood, FN Bryan (an off-spinner) and Hyde, who all took 20 or more wickets, and Wyatt with 19. EW Elwood, in his last year at School, proved an excellent captain, in addition to his prowess as a left-handed all-rounder. It was in 1928, and no doubt in part due to Elwood, that cricket blazers were introduced. The 1928 team photograph in the Chronicle shows the team attired in the cream blazers with light and dark blue stripes that would become very well known to future generations of Edwardian cricketers. NAM Plowright’s eleven won seven matches out of 14 in 1929. The batsmen were in fine form in the early part of the season, recording innings totals in excess of two hundred in each of the first four matches – 229 against Bromsgrove, 266 for nine against S Whitehouse’s XI, 209 for eight declared against Denstone, and 205 for eight against Jesus College. A fortnight later the two hundred was exceeded for the fifth time, against Bedford Modern. FL Bland returned to form, scoring 114 against Whitehouse’s XI, and NAM Plowright with 84 was the chief contributor against Bedford Modern. However, the outstanding player was FN Bryan, who had a magnificent season with both bat and ball. He scored 116 against Jesus College, and 125 against Warwickshire Club and Ground. The outstanding match of the season was the game against Denstone at Eastern Road on 25 May: there is a detailed description of the match in Wisden for 1930. Denstone batted first, having won the toss, but were all out for 113, Bryan taking 6 for 34. KES then made 209 for eight declared, as recorded above. Bryan with 44 was the top scorer but Bland made 43 and Wyatt and Plowright also made useful contributions. Denstone were then dismissed a second time by Plowright with 5 for 26 and Bryan with 4 for 22, which gave him match figures of 10 for 56. KES ran out winners by an innings and 48 runs. After these early successes, things did not go quite so well in the middle of the season, when three matches were lost, but the Old Edwardians were beaten by 77 runs. Bryan made 87, sharing in a stand of 129 for the first wicket with Wyatt, and then Plowright took six wickets as the OEs were dismissed for 90. The side returned to form at the end of the season, winning the last three matches. Against Denstone, Plowright scored 79 and took four wickets, Bryan five; only bare details of the other two matches are known, but it must have been in one of these that Bryan scored his second century and Wyatt recorded a score of 85. Bryan finished the season with 611 runs and 39 wickets. Plowright also had an outstanding season with 413 runs and 59 wickets. Wyatt, while he did not match the heights of 1928, scored 407 runs and took 22 wickets, and Bland was the fourth member of a formidable batting quadrumvirate with 348 runs. Several of these players departed at the end of the 1929 season, notably Plowright (816 runs and 136 wickets in his School career), Bryan (869 runs and 62 wickets) and Bland