Reed II’s travelled to Old Finchleians on Saturday looking to improve upon their recent form. Reed captain Jason Archer lost the toss, and his side were put into the field by Finchleians captain A. Savani in the baking North London sunshine.
Reed’s opening bowlers Richard Robertson and Karl Ward got them off to a perfect start, taking a wicket apiece to leave Old Finchleians 14-2. However, a slow but steady 70 run partnership saw Finchleians move towards a decent total. In order to combat this, Reed captain Archer made an inspired bowling change by introducing himself, in conjunction with the returning Rupert Martin. Martin ripped into the Finchleians middle order, breaking the menacing partnership and taking the wicket of danger man Faisal for 46. Martin went on to take 3 wickets in his first spell, and was supported ably by captain Jason Archer, who returned to form with a superb and mammoth spell of bowling in which he was rewarded with 3 wickets for only 24 runs.
Part time spinner Ben Bowles also excelled with the ball, bowling a highly economical 5 over spell in tandem with Archer, to heap the pressure on the Old Finchleians batsmen looking to set a challenging total. Bowles was highly unlucky not to take a wicket in his bowling stint, but with some decent lower order batting Finchleians were able to creep towards their first batting points target of 145. The reintroduction of Martin did get Reed another wicket, however the home side were able to survive and batted out their allotted 53 Overs for 152-9.
Reed looked to have the edge in the game as their openers went out to chase the target, but as has happened on too many occasions so far this season, they let themselves down after getting into a strong position. The top 5 all failed, and Reed were left in the daunting position of being 28-5. Some good middle order batting from Karl Ward (18), Richard Robertson (18) and Steve Lovegrove (24) did briefly give Reed a glimmer of hope, but 2 run outs involving Lovegrove and Ward summed up Reed’s day, as they were eventually all out for 115 in 40 overs.
