Reed hosted Welwyn Garden City II’s at the Green on Saturday. WGC won the toss and inserted the hosts in conditions that would appear to offer assistance to the bowlers. Phil Frenay joined James Heslam at the top of the innings and the pair made a solid start to proceedings, taking advantage of some ordinary bowling. Any momentum gained by the hosts was thwarted in the 7th over with a 40 minute break as a knee injury to one of WGC’s fielders required the assistance of paramedics.
Resuming play after this break, Reed continued forward until there was a breakdown in communication between the pair resulting in Heslam (18) being narrowly run out. This brought Chris Jackson to the crease, who started with a flurry of boundaries. After this initial good start from Reed, WGC’s bowlers began to get into their rhythm, and runs became more difficult to come by, particularly with the introduction of spin to the attack. Some excellent running between the wickets however kept the scoreboard ticking over and frustrated the bowlers. Jackson was first to register his half century with some powerful, lofted straight shots. Frenay soon followed him to 50 with a heave into leg side for 4.
As both batsmen got their eye in the run rate began to increase, capitalising on the excellent start made by the pair. Frenay, keen to use his feet to the spinners was eventually undone as he missed one down the leg side and was stumped for 79, ending an excellent 160 run partnership with Jackson. This brought Tom Fulk to the crease who played some nice shots before he unselfishly misjudged a drive to mid on and was caught for 15 as Reed pushed hard to squeeze as many runs as they could from the final few balls. Tom Greaves finished on 2 and despite a number of aggressive strokes from Jackson he ended not out, 2 runs short of his century, scoring 90’s in consecutive weeks. Reed were happy enough with their total of 226-3 off their allotted 51 overs.
Reed’s bowlers took over from where their batsmen left off. Lee Johnson (13-5-39-1) and Graeme Wilson (15-3-61-4) both bowled excellently in their opening spelling, Johnson’s first 5 overs did not yield a run from the bat and his pace combined with his fine line and length caused the visitors openers’ numerous problems. Wilson on the other hand used his guile and variation to out think the opposition and he claimed a fantastic 4 wicket haul. Although bowling well and accounting for the top 5 batsman, a partnership began to develop and after the drinks break the opening pair were replaced Richard Johnson (5-0-18-0) and Andrew Young (6-1-40-1). Both bowlers bowled well and after a sharp stumping by keeper Si Jackson the hosts thought that they were on the way to securing victory. However the incoming batsman proceeded to play some measured aggressive strokes. A late wicket by skipper Bernie Morss reignited the hope, but in reality it was too little too late and the visitors finished 180-7 resulting in a draw and 17 points for the home team. Reed can be buoyed by this display as they bounced back well from being outplayed the week before by Old Finchleians. The batting, bowling and fielding were all vast improvements on the previous week’s efforts.
