IT may have been a prestigious fixture, but the honour of taking part in the rain-ruined MCC v Champions match at Lord’s has been a costly exercise for Durham considering that half the playing time was lost.

They stayed in the Danubuis Hotel near the ground, where the advertised rate is well over £200 a night. I suspect no-one would be daft enough to pay that, and the rate offered to the Durham squad of 13 players, plus officials, was £105. So the hotel bill alone would have been well over £6,000.

As readers of my book, Summers With Durham, will know I have a strong aversion to hotels and generally seek out a comfortable farmhouse with friendly service and huge freshly-cooked breakfast for about £30. Such places are thin on the ground in London, and because I was taking the opportunity to attend the Wisden dinner for the first time last Wednesday I spent that night at the Danubuis.

I have been the almanac’s Durham correspondent for 17 years but had got into the habit of turning down the dinner invitation because it’s always held in central London. While sampling the delights of the Inner Temple Hall, I did make the suggestion that to honour Durham as champions the dinner should have been held in the Beamish Mary pub at No Place. I suspect the chief speaker, Barnsley lad Sir Michael Parkinson, might even have preferred that.

The best moment of the night for me was seeing Dale Benkenstein presented with his leather-bound copy of the almanac as one of the five Cricketers of the Year. As another recipient (although he wasn’t there) was South African Neil McKenzie, there have been six players with Durham connections honoured in this fashion in the last four years. The others are Steve Harmison, Paul Collingwood, Ottis Gibson and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

AS the nearest tube station to Inner Temple Hall, Blackfriars, was closed, the evening culminated in a short stroll along the north bank of the Thames before taking the underground back to St John’s Wood.

The following morning I strolled by another waterway, the Regent’s Canal, which was easily accessible from the Danubuis. On the Regent’s Park side, heading towards London Zoo, is a row of houses in the £5m bracket; on the other bank, heading back towards Little Venice, I discovered a vagrant under a railway bridge.

As he appeared to be still asleep in his sleeping bag at 8.15, it occurred to me he had had a better night than me as I had slept fitfully before rising at 7am in my £105-a-night room.

This is meant as a light-hearted observation, so I apologise to anyone who considers it cruel or politically incorrect.