Reed raced emphatically through to the Keatley Cup final on Tuesday 29th June as they overwhelmed Ashwell on Royston Heath in a hard fought battle. As defending champions, having beaten Royston by 10 wickets in the final the year before, Reed are due to face the winners of Foxton v. Great Chishill, which is being played at Reed on Tuesday 6th July at 6pm. The final is provisionally booked for 13th July with a location to be confirmed.

Having won the toss, Reed’s skipper Will Clarke (3-0-17-0) decided to take an uncharacteristic gamble by bowling first, which proved to be inspired. Peter Tidey made early inroads into the Ashwell line-up by dismissing P. Leete for 1, but S.Parkhurst (56) and T. Moynihan (21) stabilised the ship with confident innings that saw Ashwell to a domineering position over the defending champions. However, when Parkhurst tried to hit one six too many off Jason Archer (3-0-39-2), he was well caught by Jim Allsopp, who starred in last year’s final with 6 wickets. Moynihan also fell LBW to Archer, yet an inspired bowling change saw Chris Jackson capitalise from his slower pace to snatch 3 cheap wickets (3-0-19-3), including emerging dangerman Ben Ingrey (21). Combined with 2 catches from Marcus Martin on the boundary and 2 run outs from James Heslam and Simon Jackson as well as some tight bowling from Allsopp (3-0-14-1) at the death, Ashwell’s batting stuttered and eventually ground to a halt at 146-9 off their 15 eight ball overs.

Reed’s reply began at a very disappointing pace, thanks to the rousing pace and pinpoint accuracy of Ben Ingrey (3-0-17-0). Combined with some excellent fielding, Reed looked to be struggling, especially after James Heslam (14) was run-out backing up, Chris Jackson was caught by Ingrey off R.Kemp (3-0-16-2) on the boundary and Simon Jackson fell in a similar fashion. However, this brought Stuart Smith, Reed’s saviour to the crease. His no nonsense approach saw him smash the bowling to all parts of the ground and put Reed back into a position to win. In conjunction with Marcus Martin (12), Chris Shorrock (18) and Jim Allsopp (12), who struck the largest six of the evening up the hill, Smith managed to steer Reed to victory with 6 balls to spare with skipper Will Clarke (5*) together at the crease. Ashwell’s bowlers S.Parkhurst (3-0-40-0) and T.Moynihan (3.2-0-35-2) particularly suffered at the hands of Smith.