Two half centuries by Tom Greaves (50) and Rob Lankester (58) failed to gain the Firsts a win in this top division once again.
After losing both openers early on, the two came together to take the score to 103-2 despite some very tight bowling by the entire Harpenden attack. Indeed captain Nick Lamb made 11 bowling changes to keep the batsmen (and bowlers!) on their toes, which finally wore down their patience as both were out trying to force the run rate to match their opponents 187. Another left arm spinner, Ashleigh Sivirajah, caused them their main problems with his unrelenting accuracy, finishing with figures of 10-3-12-3. The last 8 wickets fell for 45 as the lower order subsided against his spin and fast pace of Chad Barrett (3-22).
Earlier, Reed’s bowlers toiled manfully to keep a skilful batting unit to 187 all out. The wickets were shared evenly, although there was another notable performance by leg spinner Kapil Dave (2-29) including both Harpenden’s top scorers , Lamb (39) and Barrett (49) as his victims. Ed Wharton (2-27) and Mitchell Cooper (2-13 plus a run out) removed the tail for just 23 runs.
Reed took all 7 bowling points, but fell agonisingly 2 runs short of a second batting point. Nevertheless the sharp running between the wickets and much better accuracy of the bowling (just one wide and one no ball) gave hope for better results to come. It needs more batsmen to come to the party however.
Match report submitted by Peter Wholley.
