After promotion last season, Reed IV’s began their season away to Baldock III at Weston Cricket Club. A much changed side from last season’s league winners gave opportunity to five of the current U15 colts to make their open-age league cricket debuts. Skipper Bowman won the toss and elected to bowl.
Matt Yates and Jack Wilkerson opened up the bowling ,and both bowled well, before Yates (7-0-41-1) made the breakthrough following a good catch by Kieran Willoughby in the covers, leaving Baldock 45-1. The introduction of Steve Hughes (8-0-33-4) saw 3 wickets tumble in quick succession, including a sharp catch behind from Bowman. Jake Gifford (6-2-22-1) also bowled well and claimed his first wicket in adult cricket. In the final few overs the tight bowling of Martin Johnson (3-1-2-0) and determination of young colt Jonathan Adam (4.3-0-29-3) saw Reed bowl out Baldock for 174 off 34.3 overs.
Reed opened with Willoughby and Johnson, the latter was lost early for 3 which brought Bill Mansfield to the crease. Willoughby (16) hit several shots to the boundary and looked in good nick, until he went for one shot too many and was bowled by Rist (8-1-9-3). Two more quick wickets were lost and Reed were looking shaky at 34-4 from the first 10 overs. Mansfield (18) and Bowman set about trying to solidify the innings and dug in to resist the Baldock spin attack. When Mansfield was lost for 18, Bowman managed to hang around until the 28th over to drag the score to 87, before being caught trying to speed things up for 14. There were useful contributions further down the order from Gifford (13) and Hughes (7) which managed to gain Reed a batting point before Reed were all out for 118 off 36.3 overs.
A brave and determined performance from a much changed Reed IV’s side from last year and there is much hope for the future after the all-round performances from the colts in the side.
Report by Lloyd Bowman.
