Reed lose by 35 runs Reed’s league position slipped to joint second on Saturday with St. Albans IIs as they succumbed to a strong all round team performance by Letchworth IIs at Reed, and Redbourn built on their previous success.

Electing to bowl first, Reed started poorly as G.Bishton (69) and R.Walsh (57) steered the visitors to a solid 105 for the first wicket. The wicket offered very little assistance to the fast bowlers, as only Peter Tidey (26-7-60-3) managed to make any inroads, along with spinner Chris Jackson (11-1-34-1) in his first league bowl of the season.

In their 53 overs, Letchworth managed to rack up 191 for 6. Reed’s response started positively as James Heslam (15) and Baz Curtis (14) managed to tame the bowling well until E.Morse (6-0-33-1) had Curtis caught at fine leg. Chris Jackson, in his best league knock of the season managed to hit a carefully grafted and patient 66 leading Reed well towards the required rate in conjunction with Tom Fulk (16).

Once A.Jenkins (14-1-46-5) had Jackson stumped with his leg-spinners, the middle order yielded cheaply, and with added pressure on the tail to maintain a growing run rate, they too gave away their wickets needlessly.

Reed eventually capitulated as the leg-spinner had Berks caught and bowled in the penultimate over of the day as they tried to bat out for the draw. Despite a second successive loss, on the back of a five game winning streak, Reed skipper, Simon Jackson, remained up-beat: “we have identified where we have gone wrong this past fortnight, and are working hard as a team to patch up the problem. All teams have tough periods, but we all see the recent losses as a useful lesson from which we can all capitalise.” Reed face Welwyn Garden IIs on Saturday at home.