When Bishop’s Stortford rolled into town with multiple county players, it was always going to be tricky for the Reed U15s, especially when a depleted side were relying on support from 2 enthusiastic U13s players. Bishops Stortford won the toss and opted to bat first.

In a marked improvement from the first match, the opening bowlers kept the bowling tight, and extras to a minimum.

In a deliberate tactic, Reed interspersed their seam and spin bowlers – A tactic which initially worked well with Oli Cambridge dismissing batter #2 with his second ball – clean bowled.
Reed continued to take regular wickets, but the strong Stortford batting line-up regularly found the boundary.

Pick of the bowlers were George Wood (3-1-2-17) and Oli Cambridge (3-0-2-25), With Daniel Vincent taking one wicket, and stumping the non-striker off his own bowling with some sharp hands.

Stortford finished on 150 for 6.

Facing some rapid bowling, the opening pairing of Jacob Vincent and George Wood tried to weather the storm in the hope of some relief with the change bowlers. Unfortunately, George was caught on 0 and Jacob followed shortly after after some superb ‘keeping had him stumped on 6.

Reed never really recovered, and the bowling remained relentless for the first 10 overs. It was only after the spinners came on that Reed had the opportunity to score runs, but by then then Reed had lost 7 wickets for a score of 33.

With the match lost and Callum Ricketts and Liam Neal determined to see out the overs, the innings drifted towards its conclusion. A late flurry of boundaries from Callum towards the end left Reed on 68 for 8 off the 20 overs, with Liam falling with just 1 ball remaining for Aaron Nash to face.

Reed face Bishop’s Stortford twice more in the next 2 weeks (BS 2s and BS 1s in the Cup).

The Bishop’s Stortford coach admitted that they had a very strong team – with plenty of them regularly playing adult and county cricket. He was also very complimentary of Reed’s fielding – which was evident in their determination to prevent boundaries, and their crisp catching.

Next Up – Welwyn.

Match report submitted by Lee Vincent.