Reed were the unlucky losers in a game that went down to the final ball of the match at home to Luton Town & Indians on Saturday. With Luton requiring 2 off the final over with 1 wicket left, the ever improving spin bowler Will Dobson (3-70) managed to bowl 4 dots balls before Luton managed to scramble a single on the 5th ball. This meant that Luton could win or the game could be tied but a miss hit shot by the Luton number 10 saw Luton scrap through.
Reed batted first and quickly saw them at 39-3 after some good bowling by Bashir (6-47). The quick wickets bought Chris Jackson and Phil Frenay together who batted superbly against a strong Luton team. The two class batsman took Reed to 174 before Frenay was out for 76. Young Ed Garrett showed maturity beyond his years in scoring 26 not out. Jackson was unfortunate to miss out on a ton when he was out trying to bring this up in fine style in the final over of the innings for 96, with Reed finishing on 243-6.
With Luton having Rajasthan Royals IPL player Dhiren Salvi in their batting line up, Reed knew they would have to bowl and field well to have a chance of winning this game. They got off to a great start after two sharp pieces of glove work from Simon Jackson seeing Luton stumble to 37-2. With Salvi now in with Naik (71), Luton started to take the game to Reed. With Captain James Heslam shuffling his attack, including his 3 spinners, he managed to get Salvi out for a classy 78 thanks to some great spin bowling from Garrett. This saw Luton at 174-4 before crumbling to 233-9, with 2 overs left before the last overs close finish. Heslam said after the game, “we knew Luton were a strong side but having a guy who plays back home with international greats such as Shane Warne, Shane Watson and Graeme Smith, really made the difference. Our boys did superbly and the game could easily have gone our way in the end. It was a shame to lose but I hope we can bounce back at home to Northwood on Saturday”.
