Reed continued their good run of form with a convincing away victory at Northwood on Saturday. Arriving at the ground, the Reed players could have been forgiven for thinking the track had been unprepared; bright green in colour, the track had been covered and not cut for a couple of days leaving plenty of grass on the wicket to add to the insitu moisture. Reed lost the toss and were unexpectedly ask to have a bowl. Lee Johnson opened up for Reed and produced a fine spell of opening bowling which saw him and his partner Jack Tidey make good use of the wicket, causing problems throughout for the Northwood batsman.
Tidey was first to make the breakthrough, snicking up Khan to his brother Sean with the score on just 16. The rest of the show however was Lee Johnsons’, taking 6 wickets in a double spell of bowling which reduced Northwood to tatters. If it wasn’t for Hussey and Wise who produced a resilient 6th wicket partnership, Northwood would have been skittled out cheaply. However, they pushed the score to 109 before Chris Peckett (2-37) broke the partnership, taking one of his two wicket of the game. Mitchell Cooper (1-13) again showed his all round credentials with the ball, however it was Johnson (6-31) who finished up the tail to end an superb spell of bowling and topped off a fine fielding performance from Reed.
In reply, Reed lost the early wicket of Greaves when a ball from Lewis held up in the pitch and was easily caught at mid-off. At 33-1, Mckechnie strode out to the wicket to join Heslam, who had been adjusting well to the conditions and was scoring relatively freely. When Heslam fell shortly after, Jackson joined Mckechnie at the crease and between them they manoeuvred the ball around to keep the runrate at a healthy level.
With the grey clouds drawing in, a wise decision was taken by the Reed duo to try and finish the game with purpose and intent to avoid the possibility of rain affecting the result. Mckechnie in particular, played some aggressive stroke play; punishing the Northwood bowlers in a fine unbeaten innings of 67 off just 51 balls. Jackson and Mckechnie saw Reed home in 21.5 overs, completing a comfortable and convincing victory which keeps Reed in 4th position and in close touch of the leaders.
Northwood Scorecard
