Reed rediscovered their winning ways by beating Bayford and Hertford by 4 wickets, maintaining their healthy 4th placed position in a tight top of the table on Saturday, despite missing their key batsmen James Heslam, due to a prolonged injury, and Chris Jackson.

Reed 1st XI skipper, Simon Jackson, won the toss and made the opposition bat, allowing the Reed bowlers to capitalise on a little moisture and favourable swing conditions. Despite this, the Bayford openers began strongly, reaching 21 for no wicket due to some unusually lacklustre by Reed&Mac226;s leading wicket-taker Michael Berks (5-0-37-1), but an important breakthrough by him triggered the start of Bayford’s demise.

Opening bowler William Clarke (12-7-15-4), emerging from some disappointing recent form, found his perfect line and length accounting for the dismissal of opener N.Sinclair (4) and R.Hogg (6) to catches by Baz Curtis and Stuart Smith. With his first eight overs being struck for only 4 runs, the pressure was building on Bayford to score, which was made particularly difficult thanks to exaggerated swing movement.

This pressure came to a head as a needless run-out occured in the 14th over which saw the captain, M.Knowles (25) dismissed after forebodingly finding the middle of the bat earlier with two beautifully struck sixes. With this key wicket, Reed reapplied the pressure as Clarke struck again dismissing middle order batsmen W.Rowe and S.Greenfield for ducks to leave the home team stranded on 56-6. Peter Tidey (10-3-28-3) bowled in conjunction with Clarke at the other end, producing some booming inswingers to pickup 3 of the lower order batsmen. The innings was finally ended as Richard Jerome (2.3-0-7-1) dismissed the N.Burgess (35), the core of the Bayford innings, with a carefully executed quicker ball, leaving the hosts on 95 all out

Bayford&Mac226;s bowling began very solidly, as Hogg (16.5-4-36-3) used the same swing to tear out Reed&Mac226;s middle order. Always feeling they were in with a strong chance, Bayford&Mac226;s high spirits were eventually dampened by Tom Fulk (35*), with probably the performance of the day, as he carried his bat throughout the Reed innings, in undoubtedly his most impressive innings in his first year of as 1XI opener. In an innings of steely patience, with wickets falling regularly around him, Fulk was supported by Chris Shorrock (17) and substantial extras (23), which helped Reed reach the total with, despite the nervy circumstances.

Reed captain, Simon Jackson was fittingly at the crease to celebrate Reed’s win, and he later afterwards: “Batting was tough for both teams out there, but our bowlers used the conditions to the maximum effect. The batting was also positive in some areas, particularly considering the lack of two top-order players and the conditions, but Tom Fulk showed great maturity and skill in his innings to effectively win us the match against some testing Bayford bowlers”