Reed travelled to St Albans on Saturday with an unchanged side looking to capitalise on last week’s convincing victory over Hitchin. On arrival, the pitch looked good, and the outfield flat and true. The newly installed 4 lane nets looked equally as impressive and are clearly a real asset to St Albans, however strangely not available for match-day use for either team!

Reed lost the toss and the home side elected to bat. The Reed opening pair of Johnson and Cooper continued where they left off the previous week, with Cooper (3-26) picking up the early wicket of St Albans skipper with the score on just two. It wasn’t long before Johnson got in the act, trapping Rowlands infront of the stumps with the score on 41. This then brought in the big hitting Manzoor who stuck to his game plan throughout, striking several boundaries in quick successions. It was Tom Greaves (3-39) who picked up his wicket, with the field delicately set Manzoor was tied back and fell LBW for a fruitful 41. At the other end Jack Tidey and Bernie Morse (2-39) both picked up wickets and the St Albans innings was faltering after a decent start. Chaudry strode out to the crease, and quickly strode back, with Morse clean bowling him without troubling the scorers. Chandra quickly followed and St Albans found themselves in the precarious position of 132-8. However, a sterling 9th wicket partnership between O’Toole and Rossen took St Albans to a more respectable 196 before the final 2 wickets fell, leaving them all out for 200 . An excellent all round bowling performance from Reed on an excellent batting track.

In response Reed made excellent early progress, with both Heslams crunching the loose ball to the boundary with relative ease. A double bowling change made little difference , with the pair putting on 85 before William (32) was out looking to work a ball to leg. This brought in Joe Curk, who continued where William left off, dispatching the good and bad ball to the boundary with immaculate timing. James Heslam (55) reached his fifty before uncharacteristically playing around a ball from O’Toole. This gave a glimmer of hope to St Albans, however Curk (51) was in full flow and reached his fifty before being caught with the score on 163. Chris Jackson (30*) and Tom Greaves (26*) made light work of the platform already set which saw Reed comfortably reach their target with 7.1 overs remaining.