Match Report To Follow

Reed travelled to St Albans on Saturday with an unchanged side looking to capitalise on last week’s convincing victory over Hitchin. On arrival, the pitch looked good, and the outfield flat and true. The newly installed 4 lane nets looked equally as impressive and are clearly a real asset to St Albans, however strangely not available for match-day use for either team!Reed lost the toss and the home side elected to bat. The Reed opening pair of Johnson and Cooper continued where they left off the previous week, with Cooper (3-26) picking up the early wicket of St Albans skipper with the score on just two. It wasn’t long before Johnson got in the act, trapping Rowlands infront of the stumps with the score on 41. This then brought in the big hitting Manzoor who stuck to his game plan throughout, striking several boundaries in quick successions. It was Tom Greaves (3-39) who picked up his wicket, with the field delicately set Manzoor was tied back and fell LBW for a fruitful 41. At the other end Jack Tidey and Bernie Morse (2-39) both picked up wickets and the St Albans innings was faltering after a decent start. Chaudry strode out to the crease, and quickly strode back, with Morse clean bowling him without troubling the scorers. Chandra quickly followed and St Albans found themselves in the precarious position of 132-8. However, a sterling 9th wicket partnership between O’Toole and Rossen took St Albans to a more respectable 196 before the final 2 wickets fell, leaving them all out for 200 . An excellent all round bowling performance from Reed on an excellent batting track.In response Reed made excellent early progress, with both Heslams crunching [...]

Reed stay in the hunt!Reed made it 3 wins on the bounce with victory against bottom of the league St Albans on Saturday.The visitors won the toss and chose to bat on a decent looking Reed wicket. They got off to a decent start reaching 38-0 in 9 overs. However, dangerous paceman Jack Tidey got the wicket he deserved trapping Curtis LBW for 16. This opened things up and St Albans faltered to 48-4 off 13 overs with Tidey taking 3 and Tom Greaves removing dangerman Manzoor for 24. The visitors then had some reasonable partnerships with Ingham playing well for his 51 but they were held in check well by some good bowling and fielding by Reed. Rupert Martin bowled excellently taking 2-23 off 11 overs and was well supported during his spell by the returning Mitchell Cooper (1-42), Greaves (2-50) and Tidey (4-37). St Albans finished up 159 all out after 49 overs. In reply Reed raced to an important victory with James and Will Heslam taking full advantage of a weakened St Albans bowling attack. They hit the ball to all parts of the ground on their way to 158-0 in just 19 overs. 1 run from victory James Heslam fell for 76 which resulted in 2 quick wickets but 18 year old Will Heslam hit the winning runs ending up on 78 not out off just 51 balls seeing Reed to victory on 162-2 off 20.2 overs.Results elsewhere went against Reed but things are tightening up into what looks like a 3 horse race for the 2nd place promotion spot with Reed 6 points off second and 1 point off 3rd. Next week Reed host mid-table Ampthill Town.

Match Report To Follow

Reed came away from Flitwick disappointed after losing a game they at one stage looked like they were favourites to win.Flitwick won the toss and surprisingly put Reed into bat although you could see why when they opened the bowling with the pace of Kiwi allrounder Joseph in their armoury who bowls for Wellington.This presented a stern test for the Reed top order which they coped with pretty well and surprisingly the damage was done at the other end which left Reed at 70-4 off 21 overs with skipper James Heslam (30) playing an important knock helping to see off Joseph.From this point onwards Reed took a foothold in the game as Tom Greaves and Stuart Smith put on a superb partnership of 136 for the 5th wicket. Greaves was in excellent touch and was very unfortunate not to get the 100 his performance deserved being caught on the boundary for 94. Smith made an impressive 58 and with Cooper chipping in with 13 not out at the end Reed made a good score of 236-5 off their 53 overs. It might have been more but Joseph returned for the last 4 overs half of which were made up of bouncers the Reed batsman struggled to lay a bat on!In reply Reed made an excellent start as Mitchell Cooper bowled with skill and heart taking 3 important wickets. With Greaves being introduced to the attack early and picking up the wicket of Joseph Reed were in a great position with Flitwick at 69-4 off 14 overs.However, Reed failed to continue the flow of wickets and partnerships were built taking the score to 145-6 although the run rate had dropped. Nevertheless with the Flitwick captain Davies [...]

Reed picked up their first win of the season with a fine all round performance against Flitwick. Skipper James Heslam won the toss and put the visitors into bat, and both Lee Johnson and Jack Tidey extracted some early movement out of the pitch but to no avail. Flitwick’s openers both looked comfortably set without punishing the Reed bowlers to any great degree, but were still going at a healthy 4 an over. Russell (48) was first to go, picking out the fielder on the boundary and Curk duly took the catch. Both Russell and partner Umlauf had played patiently in a decent 78 run opening stand, which should have set Flitwick up for a big total. But Morse and Greaves had other ideas, and were plugging away with the ball in tandem, making scoring difficult for the incoming Flitwick batsman. Joseph came and went, and with the run rate slowing up, wickets fell with Flitwick trying to exert the pace of the game. Read (64*) was the pick of the Flitwick batsmen and batted solidly before taking an aggressive liking to Greaves’ latter overs , taking Flitwick to a respectable 208-7 in their 53 over. Greaves (5-90) picked up his 5th wicket in the final over, to finish off a marathon spell of spin bowling in tandem with Morse (2-62), who equally performed well without the wickets to show for it. In reply Reed started strongly before losing Will Heslam to Joseph for 9. This brought Joe Curk to the crease who batted with class, caressing the ball around the ground. When he was adjusted LBW to Joseph for 20 the game was poised, ready for either side to take the initiative. Chris Jackson [...]

Match Report To Follow

Match Report To Follow

Despite losing the top of the table clash with Hertford, Reed maintained their position 2nd in Herts League Division One heading into the final round of matches this Saturday.Hertford skipper Gale won the toss and elected to bat for the first time this season knowing 5 bonus points were all they would need to confirm their promotion. He then proceeded to impressively hit the first 4 balls of the match to the boundary to set the tone for the Hertford innings. Despite this Reed fought back hard and picked up their 1st wicket at 34-1 in the 5th over with Jack Tidey (1-42) rushing McGregor into a mistimed pull shot. Despite this breakthrough, Hertford continued to make good progress led by Gale who played a captains innings of 77 in quick time. He was supported by solid middle order contributions from the Ray brothers and Joyce. At 178-3 in the 40th over Hertford looked on course but when Gale became one of the impressive Tom Greaves (5-78) five wickets the innings faltered. With Curk (3-35) bowling well in partnership with Greaves, Reed were able to avoid Hertford racking up a very big total restricting them to 232-9 in 53 overs. So there was hope for Reed in the chase on what was a good batting wicket and short boundary one side.Reed got off to a decent start with the Heslam brothers taking the score onto 67-0 in 15 overs with Will Heslam (41) playing very impressively scoring at an excellent rate. However James Heslam (27) was then controversially dismissed caught behind and Greaves fell immediately after turning the game in the space of four balls. Will Heslam then fell leaving Reed at 75-3 off 19 [...]

Reed lost out on a hard fought battle against promotion contenders Hertford on Saturday. Having won the toss, Hertford inserted Reed into bat and the Heslam brothers started well at the top of the order. Both batsman got good starts but both lost wickets at key times when they were both set, and eyeing up big scores. This was the story throughout the Reed innings, with all bar one top six batsman making it into the twenties or thirties, but failing to make Hertford pay, losing wickets at key times. As a result Reed finished prematurely on 179 all out in 49.1 overs, knowing that this was 20-30 runs shy of a par score.In reply Reed knew they had to exert early pressure on the Hertford batsman, and that is exactly what they did. Jack Tidey, returning to opening the bowling in light of Mitchell Cooper's absence bowled with pace and movement, causing the Hertford batsman trouble throughout. Ably supported by Lee Johnson and Tom Greaves, Tidey (2-86) bowled a mammoth 18 over spell, picking up two prized wickets. The ever reliable Tom Greaves (2-38) played with the Hertford batsman, and was unlucky not to have picked more wickets in an excellent spell of tight, patient spin bowling . At 76-5 Hertford were on the rocks, but Ray and Bancroft batted stubbornly, and with the assistance of a fair amount of luck they put themselves into a strong position. When these two departed, Hertford surely couldn't lose and despite Reed making them work very hard for the win, Hertford knocked the winning runs with an over to spare with just two wickets remaining. This finished a tight, hard fought game by both sides. Reed will [...]