Reed hosted Welwyn Garden City II’s at the Green on
Saturday. WGC won the toss and inserted the hosts in
conditions that would appear to offer assistance to the
bowlers. Phil Frenay joined James Heslam at the top of the
innings and the pair made a solid start to proceedings,
taking advantage of some ordinary bowling. Any momentum
gained by the hosts was thwarted in the 7th over with a 40
minute break as a knee injury to one of WGC’s fielders
required the assistance of paramedics.
Resuming play after this break, Reed continued forward
until there was a breakdown in communication between the
pair resulting in Heslam (18) being narrowly run out. This
brought Chris Jackson to the crease, who started with a
flurry of boundaries. After this initial good start from
Reed, WGC’s bowlers began to get into their rhythm, and
runs became more difficult to come by, particularly with
the introduction of spin to the attack. Some excellent
running between the wickets however kept the scoreboard
ticking over and frustrated the bowlers. Jackson was first
to register his half century with some powerful, lofted
straight shots. Frenay soon followed him to 50 with a heave
into leg side for 4.
As both batsmen got their eye in the run rate began to
increase, capitalising on the excellent start made by the
pair. Frenay, keen to use his feet to the spinners was
eventually undone as he missed one down the leg side and
was stumped for 79, ending an excellent 160 run partnership
with Jackson. This brought Tom Fulk to the crease who
played some nice shots before he unselfishly misjudged a
drive to mid on and was caught for 15 as Reed pushed hard
to squeeze as many runs as they could from the final few
balls. Tom Greaves finished on 2 and despite a number of
aggressive strokes from Jackson he ended not out, 2 runs
short of his century, scoring 90’s in consecutive weeks.
Reed were happy enough with their total of 226-3 off their
allotted 51 overs.
Reed’s bowlers took over from where their batsmen left off.
Lee Johnson (13-5-39-1) and Graeme Wilson (15-3-61-4) both
bowled excellently in their opening spelling, Johnson’s
first 5 overs did not yield a run from the bat and his pace
combined with his fine line and length caused the visitors
openers’ numerous problems. Wilson on the other hand used
his guile and variation to out think the opposition and he
claimed a fantastic 4 wicket haul. Although bowling well
and accounting for the top 5 batsman, a partnership began
to develop and after the drinks break the opening pair were
replaced Richard Johnson (5-0-18-0) and Andrew Young
(6-1-40-1). Both bowlers bowled well and after a sharp
stumping by keeper Si Jackson the hosts thought that they
were on the way to securing victory. However the incoming
batsman proceeded to play some measured aggressive strokes.
A late wicket by skipper Bernie Morss reignited the hope,
but in reality it was too little too late and the visitors
finished 180-7 resulting in a draw and 17 points for the
home team. Reed can be buoyed by this display as they
bounced back well from being outplayed the week before by
Old Finchleians. The batting, bowling and fielding were all
vast improvements on the previous week’s efforts.