Reed 1st XI came out on the wrong side of a tightly drawn match with 4th placed Leverstock Green on Saturday as they came close to chasing down a total of 196 in 47 overs. Reed the away side, won the toss and put their opponents into bat on a green looking wicket.

As expected this offered a great deal of inconsistent bounce but despite a decent new ball effort by Richard Johnson the Reed seamers failed to take advantage of the bowler friendly conditions early on. The Leverstock openers rode their luck to put on 110 for the first wicket.

Despite the introduction of Tidey and Jerome, keeping a hold on the scoring rate, this partnership gave the hosts an excellent platform from which a decent score was always on the cards. However, with the talismanic Peter Tidey (5-73) taking his seasons tally to 50 wickets and Jerome plugging his way to a 5-wicket haul including his 7th career hat-trick, the hosts lost wickets at regular intervals to somewhat throw away their chances of putting the game beyond Reeds reach. They stuttered to post a decent but not unachievable target of 196 all out.

The Reed reply got off to the worst possible start with James Heslam going for a duck in the 3rd over. However, skipper Simon Jackson, pushed up to open the batting in light of the clubs growing injury list, played shots all round the ground on his way to a well made 43. He found support in partnership with William Clarke (18) to keep Reed in the hunt, but when they had both departed Reed were once again in some trouble struggling at 76-4 with 26 overs gone. But with the hard-hitting pairing of Stuart Smith and Richard Jerome brought together at the crease the Reed total was pushed onto 112 before Smith was dismissed for a useful contribution of 16.

This left the visitors needing a possible 84 from 13 overs with 5 wickets in hand. Jerome held firm and in taking the attack to the Leverstock bowling got decent support at the other end from Marcus Martin (10), Johnson (11) and Tidey (15). The game came towards its climax with Reed requiring just 10 to win off the last 2 overs with Tidey and Jerome at the crease. However, a poor 2nd last over meant 8 were still needed off the last. Tidey was bowled by Australian Klostermans first ball, and it was only with 2 balls to go that Jerome was able to recapture the strike.

Despite his fine efforts he was unable to muster the 7 required leaving Reed with just 9 points from a game they came so close to winning and taking the full 30.