Wellington 2nd XI 199-9 – Staplegrove 2nd XI 200-9
The battle of the top two sides in Division Two of the Somerset League Reserves Competition went in favour of the visitors, but this was a game that Wellington could and should have won as they let it slip from their grasp in the final stages.
James Dyke’s luck with the toss continued (three games, three tosses won) and he opted to bat first again, but things went wrong as the score slipped to 60-5 with young seamer Osmond (more of him later) making inroads to an impressive looking Wellington line-up.
It was left to Chris Rudd with 50 and Julian Jones with 43 to pull things round for Wellington 2nd XI and their excellent partnership did this as both recorded maxima in the course of their innings.
Adrian Lee with a rapid 24no late on saw that Wellington just missed out on maximum batting points for the third game running.
[img_assist|fid=11|thumb=1|alt=Wellington 2nd XI 199-9 - Staplegrove 2nd XI 200-9]
Lee and Phil Nicholls, playing his first game of the season, saw to it that Staplegrove would struggle to make any impact on the 200 they needed for victory. Lee took 2-26 in 12 overs and Nicholls 3-56 in 12.
But Wellington had not banked on Osmond making 118no and basically winning the game on his own.
With only one other double figure score it is not hard to see where the Staplegrove win came from.
Wellington were chipping away at the other end, but could not remove him as he swept aside all that came his way.
Bob Trott with 2-60 in 10 overs and Chris Rudd with 2-30 in 8 did all they could, but in the end Osmond held firm and saw his team home with 2.3 overs to spare and to 34 points.
Wellington 2nd XI took 18 from the game and drop to fourth in the table with Staplegrove taking over on top.
