Reed 1st XI hosted Langleybury 1st XI at home on Saturday. Langleybury won the toss and opted to bat first. Reed’s opening bowler Ed Wharton (10-4-24-2) stormed in and had opener Corran caught behind by Sean Tidey in the third over, leaving Langleybury 10 for 1. A solid stand of 41 then developed between R.Soulsby (51) and N.Amin (19) before Wharton bowled Amin for 19. Soulsby continued with S.Knox (19) taking the score to 95 for 3 after 28 overs. Tom Greaves (15-4-37-3) brought himself into the attack and soon had Knox LBW followed by W.Oxley (5). Meanwhile Alex Mutucumarana (12.4-51-51-5) was brought into the attack bowling his leg spin and quickly got rid of A.Gunning (10). Greaves and Mutucumarana then ran through the rest of the Langleybury batting order leaving them 173 all out in 49.4 overs.
Reed were left with 65 overs to chase down the Langleybury total which should have been very gettable with no demons apparent in the pitch. However Langleybury bowled very tightly and Reed struggled to find the boundary and were 15 of 0 after 7 overs. William Heslam (5) soon fell to T.Brall and Tom Greaves followed soon after. James Heslam (38) then put on a stand of 30 with Chris Jackson (19) and Reed looked in control, but Jackson then got out with the score on 54 followed by S. Tidey and Mutucumarana without troubling the scorer and Reed were in trouble at 54 for 5. Ed Wharton kept Reed’s hopes alive with a cultured 25, but when he went the tail folded and Reed were bowled out for 97 with 35 overs remaining. The main damage was done by R.Oxley (8.5-1-33-4) and M.Corran (8-3-27-4) who both bowled excellent lines and lengths and put the Reed batsmen under pressure throughout. An unusual feature of the game was that in the first innings Reed’s spin bowlers took 8 wickets yet in the second innings all ten of Reed’s wickets fell to seam.
Reed remain 5th in the table and travel to 4th placed Hoddesdon next Saturday hoping for an improved performance.
Report submitted by Richard Robertson.
