Reed travelled to 4th place Northwood on Saturday hoping for an improvement in performance over recent weeks. Reed stand in skipper Ray Kingshott lost the toss and Northwood decided to bat. That decision looked liked a debatable one when Northwood slumped to 50-3 in the 14th over due to some good opening bowling on a pitch offering assistance to Andrew Emms (1-37) and Pete Tidey. The fall of wickets brought S. Hussey to the crease to join S. Para and these two men went about stabilising the Northwood innings and they eventually added exactly 100 for the 4th wicket before Northwood’s overseas player was eventually dismissed for a destructive 85.

This left S. Hussey who until this point had been cautious in his innings but began to open up and play some powerful drives to all parts of the ground. His innings was even more vital by the fact that support and runs at the other end were in short supply. Northwood eventually finished with 216 for 8 from there 53 overs with Hussey finishing the innings with a fantastically constructed 84 not out. The main bowler for Reed was once again the ever reliable Pete Tidey who finished with 6-75 of his 21 overs.

Reed’s opening to their inning was in direct contrast to that of Northwoods, with openers Baz Curtis and Tom Fulk setting upon the Northwood opening bowlers of S. Noach (3-53) and S.Para (4-75) with total distain.

The pairing had led Reed to a superb start scoring 50 from 7 overs until Fulk was unfortunate to be caught behind for a promising 16. This then brought James Heslam to the crease who played a supporting role whilst Curtis carried on hitting the Northwood attack to all parts, before eventually falling playing one shot to many to a fine one handed catch at mid on of the bowling of Noach for 48.

Stuart Smith and Heslam kept the scoreboard ticking making sure the bad ball got put to the boundary and when Smith got caught at cover for 17 Reed were on 103 – 3 after 19 overs. Kingshott and Richard Jerome were both dismissed cheaply and this left Reed needing 83 of 16 overs with 5 wickets remaining. Marcus Martin joined Heslam who was playing very sensibly and the pair of them put on 39 with Martin playing a mature innings before going for an expansive drive and getting caught at cover point for 10. Another mini collapse followed with 3 wickets falling for 4 runs to leave Reed at 193 – 9, all 3 wickets falling to S. Para.

Last man Pete Tidey then confidently strolled to the wicket with Reed still requiring 28 from 4 overs. Tidey elegantly struck his first ball through the covers for 3 and Heslam from there played well beyond his years by keeping the strike and in the penultimate over scored 2 sixes and 2 fours to lead Reed to an unlikely but welcomed victory and leave himself on a match wining 97 not out.