It was a case of so near so far as Reed 3rds narrowly failed to get off the mark for the league season with a win. Put in to bat by their visitors on a dull, overcast and damp Royston Heath, Reed got off to a steady start but the match changed dramatically when at 42 - 2 John Heslam joined Masseh Naeem at the crease. The pair rapidly set about establishing a significant Reed total as they despatched any loose deliveries to all parts of the ground. Naeem 77 rattled up 10 x 4's and 2 x 6's as he strode to 77 and the pair put on a new Reed 3rd Xl record 3rd wicket partnership of 148. After Naeem fell stumped Heslam continued in dominant form and his innings of 94 including 15 x 4's and 3 x 6's only ended when he attempted reach the magic "100" in style and fell caught at long off attempting another maximum. John Kershaw added a solid 30 not out before Reed declared at 258 for 5 off 45 overs.After tea and a further heavy shower Reed took to the field and soon had Letchworth in trouble at 5 - 2 as Neil Haslam 2 -38 and Ian Roberts 1 -16 bowled economical opening spells. However Letchworth veteran Gilham 34 played a solid anchor role and though wickets fell fairly regularly at the other end the overs began to drip away. Kieran Ward 2 -31 and father Alan Ward 2 - 13 made inroads but Turner 27 not out and Swain 15 not out played out the draw to restrict Reed to 18 league points deny them the maximum 30 point win. Letchworths lack of [...]

After 3 weeks of rained off games, it was a relief all round for Reed to arrive at London Colney with the sun shining and the pitch dry. Captain Jason Archer lost the toss, and Reed were put into bat. The pitch proved to be very slow, and combined with the large boundaries, Reed’s openers Ben Bowles and Fergus Martin set the Reed innings off tentatively. Bowles and Martin saw off the opening Overs, and Bowles was beginning to find his feet, striking two aggressive boundaries, before he played down the wrong line and was bowled for 13. Martin remained resolute and continued his quest to see off the new bowlers. Mark king, returning after over a month out with a hamstring injury, was unable to resurrect the form that saw him make an unbeaten century in his previous game and miss timed a straight drive to mid off to leave Reed 20 for 2. This brought Ian Fulk to the crease, and along with Martin, Fulk dug in early on to ensure Reed didn’t collapse. Fulk began loosen his arms and strike the ball to the boundary, but Reed’s scoring rate was still very slow, and when Martin was trapped LBW for 7, Reed were looking down the barrel of another collapse, at 49-3 after 25 Overs. Matt Bowles then joined Fulk in the middle, and the pair set about salvaging the innings and upping the run rate. Bowles looked particularly strong off his legs, and Fulk was playing some masterful back foot strokes. Fulk soon reached his 50, as he and Bowles put on 87 for the next wicket, with Bowles falling for a well made and powerful 36. Big hitting Jim Allsopp [...]

Reed 3rd XI continued their good start to the season with a convincing win over Ware 2nd XI, at our new home ground in Sandon.Captain Peter Baker won the toss and elected to field. It looked like it might be a long afternoon in the field with both of the openers hitting fours over the top of the bowlers heads. However, the break through soon came with Haslam (2-21) clean bowling the opener. The next wicket soon fell with Willoughby taking a catch off Kieran Ward's (3-23) bowling. After the openers had been dismissed the remainder of the wickets were quick to follow with tight swing bowling from Haslam, Ward, and Roberts (5-3) who came on as the first change. Swain also contributed by taking a good catch at Mid- off. Ware were eventually all out for 52 runs.Reed came out to bat before tea had even been delivered to the pavillion. Swain opened and scored an unbeaten 24. Marcus Baker made a valuable contribution scoring a good 16. Heslam then came into help knock the remaining few runs off scoring 9 not out. The runs were knocked off for only 3 wickets. A good all round performance by the whole team especially in the field.

Reed slipped to second in Hertfordshire League Division 2 on Saturday but remain unbeaten this year after drawing with Knebworth Park IIs at Reed. Unfortunately for Reed, their second placed rivals, Berkhamsted, whom they will meet away next week, were victorious leaving the first place open for a hard fought fixture on 14th July.Despite winning the toss, Reed struggled to break into Knebworth’s line-up as the prolific captain and overseas star, Jaret Turner (21) build a solid 42 run opening partnership with S Gregory (61). It took a special delivery by opening bowler, and stand in skipper Andrew Young (9.1-1-36-1) to remove Turner’s middle stump providing Reed with an opening, and also Knebworth’s batting order, who were clearly keen to knock their bats in this season for the first time.The entrance of P Simpson (72) complemented Gregory well, as the pair took the score to 133, plundering some loose deliveries from Reed’s bowlers, despite some excellent commitment from Graham Wilson in his first spell (18.5-3-74-1). The pair worked the ball responsibly around the wicket despatching loose deliveries from Reed’s bowlers who lacked their talismanic Peter Tidey, drafted to Trent Bridge for drinks duties for the international ODI.Garrott (7-0-37-1) and C Jackson (5-0-29-0) tried to make inroads with their twirling spinners, but the batsmen’s eyes lit up, plundering more runs at an alarming rate as Reed were staring down the barrel at a possible chase of 290.It took the introduction on William Clarke (13-1-60-2) and Graham Wilson in his second spell to peg back the score, bowl a consistent line and take some wickets. Clarke removed Simpson with a ball that trapped the 16 year old prodigy in front of the wickets. Garrott had previously removed [...]

Captain Jason Archer’s Reed team were again left ruing the summer weather on Saturday, after another victory was snatched from their grasp by one torrential downpour. After losing the toss and being asked to field Reed’s consistent bowling attack nagged away the the Trinibis batsmen. Karl Ward struck early to send opener Brown back to the hutch, with the score on 15 off 16 overs. A break for 30 minutes ensued, and after the resumption Trinibis edged on to 48 with half of their allotted 49 overs expired. Archer (12-5-321) introduced into the attack, supported ably by Richard Robertson (15-4-1-27), started to take wickets. From 48-1 Holtwhites slumped to 57-6. Rupert Martin (2-26) picking up a couple of wickets along the way. The batting side had a couple of mini recoveries before wickets fell again at 71 and 117. After 49 overs of excellent control the innings closed on 133, with Reed firmly ensconced in the driving seat. However during the tea interval, what can only be described as a monsoon hit the North London ground. With the wicket covered play would have been possible if the large lake like puddles had not formed on the square and outfield. After little chance of a break in the weather and further heavy showers the game was finally abandoned at 5.30, leaving Reeds batsmen frustrated. Skipper Archer was philosophical “ We’ve had so much bad luck with the weather, the way the fixtures have worked out, 4 games against sides in the lower half of the table have been cancelled or abandoned. Considering we have taken 100 points off 4 of the top 5 teams, the extra 80 points we have missed out on would see us challenging [...]

Reed retained their leading position in Herts League Division 2, despite chasers, Berkhamstead, managing to close the gap, after Reed drew their first game of the season at home against Flitwick. Reed now lead Division 2 by 11 points.Having won the toss, and electing to bowl of a damp, green wicket, Reed set about their task in earnest as Andrew Young (9-1-50-1) had P Gurney caught at third slip for a duck by skipper James Heslam with a classic fast bowler’s delivery cutting away off the seam.This brought Flitwick’s prolific South African overseas player, B Moses (115*) to the crease. Teaming up with fellow opener C Ferguson (40), the pair began to get to work as they dragged the score to 94-1, with some good running between the wickets, although they could have considered themselves fortunate with some close chances off Tidey (18-3-51-3) and some probing deliveries from Andy Young.However, soon after the drinks break, Ferguson’s charging of Tidey came to an end as he rode his luck too far, Simon Jackson dislodging the bails with a perfect stumping leaving the visitors 94-2. New bowler William Clarke (10-1-47-1) then despatched newcomer J Heart (0) without much fuss swinging the game back into Reed’s favour. Tidey continued to work hard with Clarke to reduce the run rate and force two further wickets through his trademark accuracy and pressure-building bowling.However, Moses remained at the crease dominating the strike, and the majority of the innings, with Reed desperately needing his wicket to get amongst the opposition. Reed continued to chip away from the bottom up, as Andrew Young completed a sharp run out opportunity to dislodge M Harvey from his perch for 12, and James Heslam then performed [...]

Reed II’s put in a solid batting and bowling display away at Flitwick II’s on Saturday, but couldn’t quite come away with maximum points, with the home side blocking out for a draw in the hot sun.Winning the toss, captain Jason Archer made the easy decision to bat first and sent in openers James Bell and Matt Bowles. The pair got Reed off to a fairly rapid start, with Bell looking strong on the offside. However bell was to fall victim of a ball that kept low, and was bowled for 14. This brought Mark King to the middle, and he too found early boundaries as Reed looked to set a big total. Bowles plundered an almighty pull shot to the mid wicket boundary as Reed reached 38-1 in just 7 Overs. However, Bowles was soon to follow Bell back to the pavilion as he was trapped LBW by Nicklin for 13 (5-1-12-2). In recent years, Reed II’s have regularly been able to call upon Ian Fulk in times of trouble, and yet again the number 4 batsman didn’t let his side down. Together with King, Fulk took the Reed score towards three figures. King then fell for 24 whilst trying a pull shot, bringing Richard Johnson to the crease. Johnson and Fulk took the game to the Flitwick attack, and both looked in fine form as they mixed good running with some well timed boundary shots. Johnson was timing the ball immaculately, and looked set for a big score as Reed reached 106-3. The introduction of leg spinner Thurstance (15-3-78-3) proved to be a turning point for Flitwick though, as first he held on to a sharp caught and bowled chance to remove Johnson [...]

Michael Robertson recorded his maiden century for Reed as his tremendous innings of 111 formed the backbone of Reed III's 249 - 6 declared against Flamstead II.Coming to the crease at 51-3 after useful early contributions from Heslam 15 and Swain 21 Robertson put the visitors attack to the sword and made them rue their decision to put Reed into bat. In a fine innings of a quality rarely seen at 3rd Xl level Robertson struck a series of powerful yet classic cricketing shots to all parts of the Sandon ground, recording 9x6's and 9x4's, a total of 90 in boundaries in his score of 111. Much to the relief of the visitors bowlers, Robertson eventually fell bowled with the score at 214 - 4 after a Reed 3rd Xl record partnership of 163 with Masseeh Naeem (35). Skipper Heslam Snr eventually declared the Reed innings closed at 249 - 6 off only 41 overs leaving the home team 49 overs to bowl out the shell shocked opposition.Reed's bowlers were equally merciless as openers Rupert Martin 2-5 and Bobby Costen 4-23 reduced Flamstead to a dismal 10 - 5 at one stage. After something of a recovery to 55-5 the introduction of Ward into the attack saw the visitors resistance completely subside and they collapsed to 86 all out with Ward registering 4.2 overs 3 maidens 3-5. Reed registered a mammouth 163 run victory against rivals only two places behind them in the league prior to the days play commencing.