Reed 4s lost convincingly to a strong Boxmoor 3s who were pushing for promotion and had a couple of players who would not look out of place in a higher team! However, on the plus side there were some strong performances from a young Reed side.
Skipper Rob Willoughby won the toss and decided to bat. Unfortunately openers Baker and Garrott were out cheaply. However, the returning Sam Deville after two years away from cricket and Lloyd Bowman (20) started to add runs to the scoreboard with good shots to the boundary. With the run rate creeping up, Boxmoor brought on two bowlers who looked quite accomplished! With the loss of LLoyd, Willoughby came in scoring a few unconventional boundaries for 18.
The very young Jag Lalli came to the crease and looked very accomplished for such a young age scoring 9. Deville was eventually out for 49. Of the remaining batsmen Sam Rice was the only one to contribute from a few well stuck shots to score 11. Reed finished on 139 all out, with only 10 batsmen.
Boxmoor batted for 10 overs before tea, as this was not due until 4pm! The Boxmoor openers did not hang around and batted very aggressively taking apart Willoughby’s bowling. At the other end Owen Hughes bowled very well, and although conceded some boundaries to good batsmen, bowled some extremely good deliveries, to cause difficulties. Although he did not pick up a wicket Owen only went for 45 off his 6 overs. The bragging rights for wicket taking in the Hughes household fell to father Steve. Steve bowled very tightly not allowing the batsmen to swing their arms. He picked up his wicket thanks to a solid catch from Sam Rice.
However, Boxmoor were too strong and knocked off the runs for only 18.1 overs.
