Reed continued their unbeaten Division 2 League run under new skipper James Heslam on Saturday as they squeezed a 20 run victory out of a challenging Old Finchleians team that showed dogged resistance and an all round strong team skills. Reed were also missing talismanic Reed swing bowler Peter Tidey due to injury.
Winning the toss, Old Finchleians elected to bowl, and their rounded attack soon paid dividends as the in-form Heslam (9) was bowled pulling with the score of 18 off D Depala (12-4-30-3). He quickly followed up having Tom Fulk (2) caught behind and bowling Curtis (31) to leave Reed floundering on 74-3 off 20 overs.
Reed’s usually concrete top order had failed and it was left to some sterling work from Chris Jackson (67*) to hold the innings together, supported ably by Marcus Martin (20) and Ed Garrott (14). Reed struggled particularly with the turning leg spin deliveries of C Depala Jnr (19-2-48-2) and P Somani’s (14-0-39-4) flighted off spinners.
Yet through the batting turmoil, where Reed lost the most amount of wickets in an innings this League season, Jackson held the fabric together to end the innings on 173-9 off 53 overs. Even Graham Wilson, in his first Reed innings of the year, grafter a sensible 7* at No 11.
Despite the sweltering conditions, Old Finchleians reply began strongly, with D Depala taking a liking to Dale Shepher’d bowling (3-0-26-1), despite him bagging R Depala at gully thanks to a Tom Fulk catch. But D Depala (35) and R Depala (41) continued the onslaught on R Johnson (4-0-32-0), as Reed were looking down the barrel at a crushing loss. It took a sharp runout and kamikaze running for Marcus Martin and Simon Jackson to make a breakthrough, and this was the opening required, as new bowler William Clarke (6-0-20-2) soon had D Depala caught at square leg off a poor delivery, thanks to one of Reed’s catches of the season by Dale Shepherd, who took a one handed diving chance to get Reed back into the game. C Depala Jnr (24) who had grafted hard to build his innings then fell to another one handed grasp by Clarke off his own bowling to leave Old Finchleians on 106-4.
The introduction of Chris Jackson (3-0-7-0) and Ed Garrott (12-4-29-5) to slow the pace of the game down, had the desired effect as Garrott went on to remove their entire lower/middle order cheaply in his first 5 wicket haul of 2007 for the 1XI. A niggling 31 from M Depala at No 10 threatened to save, even win the game for the visitors, but it was Graham Wilson (11.3-2-37-1), in his second spell who won the battle taking the last wicket to end their innings on 153 off 38.3 overs.
Reed lie top of Division 2 with full points, some 35 points clear of second placed Berkhamstead who disappointingly for them only managed a draw. James Heslam commented after the game “We are happy to win, and Chris’s innings was central to us posting a competitive score. Ed also turning the screw at the end helped push it home, but we will have to raise our game to maintain our current success, and this was by no means a comfortable win – Old Finchleians had a great bowling attack and a dangerous top order that had us in trouble early on”
