Reed Fours travelled to Harpenden Sixes on Saturday. Harpeneden won the toss and chose to bat. Reed’s opening attack of Yates and Haslam exerted early pressure as the two left handed openers found runs hard to come by. Haslam in particular bowling around the wicket, got the ball to move and seam away. Harpenden had reached 42 in the 13th over when Haslam forced Louseda to play around a straight ball for 17. Roy followed in Haslam’s next over as his stumps were rearranged by a late in-swinger (44-2). Yates (6-1-22-0) who bowled with no luck, gave way to Eames’s leg spin (9-1-52-0).
Harpeneden looked to rebuild with Field and Croft but Reed’s bowling was miserly. Haslam ended his spell (12-1-26-3) by taking the wicket of Field (50), as Ben Mansfield steadied himself a deep mid-wicket to take the catch (100-3). As last week the tight bowling in the first 25 overs forced the opposition to take risks to up the run rate. Croft (64*) and Caunce (42*) did just that, Childs (8-1-53-0), Ed Kershaw (4-0-19-0) and Johnson (2-0-16-0) found the last 16 overs hard going. Harpenden declared on 202-3 off 41 overs a competitive score.
Reed opened their reply with Garrott and Yates, Yates fell in the 2nd over for just 4 (7-1), Bill Mansfield joined Garrott and they took the score to 46 in the 10th when Mansfield top edged a ball from Cramer for 17. Ben Mansfield came to the wicket and found it difficult against the slower bowlers. He was bowled for just 1 (62-3). Garrott had reached 40 when he missed a straight one from Cramer and was bowled for 40 and when Johnson was trapped lbw to Croft for 6 Reed were wobbling at 70 for 5 in the 18th over, with the win not on, skipper Bowman and John Kershaw set about saving the game and despite some probing bowling from Harpenden they built an unbroken partnership of 70 and ended the match on 140 for 5. Kershaw and Bowman finished on 41 and 15 respectively.
Reed pick up 9 points.
Report submitted by Neil Haslam.
