Reed Sunday XI versus Forest Gate CC at Reed on Sunday 24th July 2016.

When 3 deliveries from Joe Graves’s first over had disappeared to the boundary it looked like it would be a long, hard afternoon in the field for the Reed Sunday XI. Fortunately, Josh Conley, fresh from his batting heroics of the previous day, kept tighter lines and the run-rate was immediately halved to just 6-an-over after two! More free-scoring shots by Yashin peppered the field and Forest Gate’s opening stand progressed to 26. Suddenly, that became the bogey score as Conley took 2 wickets and Graves 1 without addition to the total. Young Cormac Hosie was introduced into the attack and his leg-breaks accounted for 2 more visiting batsmen with another going to Conley then a couple falling to Sammy Rice. Seven Foresters were clean-bowled seemingly trying to make boundary shots when perhaps a more circumspect approach would have been more beneficial. This left them at a vulnerable 65 for 8. Then Mahmood, the number 4 who had watched helplessly at the non-striker’s end as the wickets had tumbled was given some welcome support by number 10, Irfan. However, Neil Haslam had him top-edging to Marcus Baker at mid-wicket for 26 when the score became 97 for 9. Last man, T. Khan also supported Mahmood in a final stand of 40 bringing them to a more challenging 137 all-out once Conley had returned to remove Mahmood for 49. Astonishingly, Conley’s statistics were 4 wickets for a mere 5 runs from 6.2 overs.

Once watered and fed, Reed’s teen-aged opening pair of Jack Childs and Mike Catt made batting look easy. Childs’ cutting behind point was impressive as he collected a succession of fours whilst the younger Catt looked classy in his front foot driving. At 47, when the Reed reply had reached 120 in the 21st over, a mix-up left Childs just feet short of his ground which was real disappointment that he had missed-out on a well-deserved fifty. After a dozen more runs, Catt holed-out to an uncharacteristic aerial shot for an otherwise attractive 71. The remaining runs were knocked-off in solid fashion by Peter Baker (11 n.o.) and Lloyd Bowman (1 n.o.) as the target was achieved in the 25th over. Reed had won by 8 wickets.

Report submitted by PGB.