Reed picked up their first win of the season with a fine all round performance against Flitwick. Skipper James Heslam won the toss and put the visitors into bat, and both Lee Johnson and Jack Tidey extracted some early movement out of the pitch but to no avail. Flitwick’s openers both looked comfortably set without punishing the Reed bowlers to any great degree, but were still going at a healthy 4 an over. Russell (48) was first to go, picking out the fielder on the boundary and Curk duly took the catch.
Both Russell and partner Umlauf had played patiently in a decent 78 run opening stand, which should have set Flitwick up for a big total. But Morse and Greaves had other ideas, and were plugging away with the ball in tandem, making scoring difficult for the incoming Flitwick batsman. Joseph came and went, and with the run rate slowing up, wickets fell with Flitwick trying to exert the pace of the game. Read (64*) was the pick of the Flitwick batsmen and batted solidly before taking an aggressive liking to Greaves’ latter overs , taking Flitwick to a respectable 208-7 in their 53 over.
Greaves (5-90) picked up his 5th wicket in the final over, to finish off a marathon spell of spin bowling in tandem with Morse (2-62), who equally performed well without the wickets to show for it.
In reply Reed started strongly before losing Will Heslam to Joseph for 9. This brought Joe Curk to the crease who batted with class, caressing the ball around the ground. When he was adjusted LBW to Joseph for 20 the game was poised, ready for either side to take the initiative. Chris Jackson and James Heslam took that on and steadied the ship, moving the ball around the ground nicely in a fine partnership of 73 .
When Heslam (49) tried penetrating the gap in the field off the bowling of Twist , he found the hands of Mushtaq and Flitwick thought they were right back in the game. However Jackson and Tom Greaves had other ideas, and batted sensibly and patiently to put Reed into a strong position as the overs were counting down. With Reed needing 29 to win with 6 overs remaining, the game quickly changed with a blink of the eye as Tom Greaves took an extraordinary liking to Ellis, smashing 5 huge sixes in five balls to quickly see Reed home. Greaves and Jackson finished unbeaten on 72 and 45 respectively, taking Reed home with 5 overs remaining.
