Reed Third XI put in a disappointing performance in the first week of return fixtures. Reed had already lost to West Herts playing away and were looking to exploit the home advantage at the Freman Oval. However, batting first Reed’s innings never really got going. Cheap early wickets took the impetus out of the batting.
Paul Garrott looked in good form in getting to 23, bringing him up to 300 runs in the season so far, before falling LBW. This left Reed on 40 for 4. Marcus J.E. Baker (32) looked to counter attack but his premature departure would prove costly. Tom Nussey (22) gave valiant assistance to Ben Moody during the middle overs. Unfortunately Moody (42 not out) ran out of partners as Reed fell to a well below par score of 151.
With such a low total there was no way for Reed to defend their score. Their only option was to attack and hope early breakthroughs will lead to a collapse. Sam Rice and Maseeh Naeem were given the job to upset the openers with the old ball. However, whereas Reed had little luck in their innings, West Herts’s Rehman (58) lived a charmed life as his swashbuckling innings all but took the game away from Reed. Joe Graves was able to take two good wickets to open up the game when the new ball was taken. But it was not enough, Reed’s poor performance with the bat left nothing for the bowlers to work with and the game was quickly over; West Herts winning by 8 wickets. Now past the half way stage of the season Reed are really going to need to improve if they want to become competitive at the top of the table again.
Report submitted by MJEB.
