Old Finchleians

Hoping for a sunny day and flat batting track in a game they would look to bat first and take good bonus points from Reed were faced with overcast conditions and a slightly green top due to midweek rain. Despite the conditions, to bat first was still a reasonable option and it was taken but would require some good batting. This was made harder by the excellent Old Finchleians attack who gave very little away all afternoon.

Reed were reduced to 29-4 at one stage. Although Stuart Smith (21) then showed some resistance the score had by the 26th over become 78-7. At this point Reed looked in all sorts of trouble but a well played knock of patience for the situation by the classy and in-form Ed Garrott (30) and a positive and sensible innings from Jack Tidey (32) gave Reed hope as they moved it up to 118 before Tidey went to one that wasn’t quite there for the drive. Garrott continued with the tail to ensure Reed didn’t give away too many overs to the opposition and at least gave the bowlers something to work with taking the Reed score to 140 before he was last man out.

Reed knew they were going to have to bowl and field out of their skins to turn the game around. Jack Tidey (3-38) did just that continuing his fine form with the ball taking out the Old Finchleians top 3 reducing the visitors to 39-3. However, Reed needed to continue to take wickets and failed to do so as the visitors consolidated to 110-3 after 28 overs. Nevertheless they had ridden their luck with a big lbw shout not given and were struggling to score freely. Therefore when the impressive Greaves (2-38) took 2 wickets in 2 overs it wasn’t a huge surprise and suddenly Reed were back in the hunt with the visitors 113-5. Unfortunately though a few half chances went begging and with so few runs to play with and overs left for the Finchleians batsmen they slowly made it home with 7 overs to spare.

Reed now need to win their last two games and hope that Old Finchleians or leaders Cockfosters slip up.