Wellington Cricket Club

Wellington Sunday XI completed a calendar year with only one defeat and made it only one reverse in 26 games when they won at Winscombe last weekend by a margin of 23 runs in what was a good game of cricket.
Winscombe – who are riding high in the Somerset Division of the WECCC – opted to put Wellington in on a damp wicket that had taken in a lot of rain the previous day, but this did not cause problems to John Paine and Richard Das Neves who put on 67 for Wellington’s opening wicket as both played a number of excellent shots.
Das Neves crisply drove the ball from bowlers of both seam and spin variety and looked set for another large score when he didn’t fully get hold of the ball when attempting a pull shot and fell victim to a great catch from Hunt for 29.
Paine was hitting the ball as well as he has all season and was in sight of another Sunday XI half-century when he was caught on the boundary off of the bowling of Winscombe skipper N.Pollard – he made 44.
This precipitated a Wellington collapse as the score tumbled from 67-0 to 97-5, but Sam Cook and skipper David Derrick added 41 for the sixth wicket that gave Wellington a chance of posting a fait total. Derrick departed with the score on 138, but this did not dampen Wellington’s charge as Cook, who progressed to an excellent 52no, and Adrian Lee added 53 seventh wicket runs that – in the end – made all the difference to Wellington’s total.
Lee smashed 30no in no time at all and Cook played well for his second Wellington career half-century as the Red and Blacks made it to 191-6 in 40 overs at tea.
For Winscombe Lunn with 1-13 in 7 overs and N.Pollard with 2-28 in 7 were their best bowlers, although young seamer Cureton did a fine job and he looked a great prospect for the home team.

Winscombe started their assault on the 192 needed in a fine way as Hunt and Shepherd dominated the early exchanges and they had 50 on the board in eight overs, but Adrian Lee produced a fine yorker to remove Hunt for 34 and then Shepherd glanced one to Sam Cook behind the sticks and 56-0 was 57-2.
Bailey started cracking the ball around with power and he had made a quickfire 33 before he was out caught hooking by Under 13 teamer Charlie Last who held a great catch from George Coate’s bowling.
Richard Das Neves was wheeling away for 3-27 in 10 overs as he not only took wickets, but applied a measure of control to the Winscombe innings.
The rate required was rising and wickets were falling steadily. John Paine was in good form with 2-21 in 7 overs and Charlie Last bowled four overs of useful medium pace as the rate got too much for the home side.
Adrian Lee collected a third wicket of the day for himself and Alec Short administered the last rites to Winscombe’s innings when he bowled Davies and sealed a ninth win in thirteen games played this Sunday XI season.