Wellington Cricket Club

Wellington made up for their narrow loss at home back in May by securing a six wicket win over Sampford Arundel last Sunday, but they were made to work hard for their victory and Sampford Arundel – who are going well in Division Five of the Somerset League – can be proud of their efforts.
Andy Childs won the toss for the home side and opted to bat, but found his side slumped to 30-5 as Adrian Lee and Grant Davey exploited the damp green pitch well by gaining good movement and action from the pitch.
Lee continued his good weekend with 1-18 in 6 overs and Davey bowled one of his best spells of the season with 3-14 in 5 brisk overs.
Rob Chave played a good rearguard innings for his team, but when he was bowled by Paul Short for 24 Sampford Arundel were in need of something to raise their score upwards.
It came from Wayne Maunder and Seb Coe who added 56 good runs for their side’s sixth wicket.
Maunder played the cut shot well and had made 32 before he was well caught by Phil Nicholls in the gully to a catch that saw Nicholls have to rise quickly to take the ball one handed, this was a vital breakthrough for Wellington.
Coe was still at the crease though and had lifted the ball out of the ground four times by the time he was dismissed by Julian Smit for 41.
He and Barry Manley put on 28 seventh wicket runs and this was another partnership that caused Wellington a bit of bother, but Richard Short’s first ball looped on to Manley’s stumps and he and Smit saw that Sampford Arundel’s tail did not prosper further and the home side was all out for 135 in 31.2 overs.

Wellington knew that to get to the 136 required would take time and was also the sort of total that had proved beyond them back in May, but Phil Nicholls and Julian Smit built a 60 run opening partnership that saw them wait for the ball to hit.
Sean Buttle and Andy Childs proved an effective opening pair for Sampford Arundel and Nicholls and Smit had to be prepared to deal with some tight and accurate bowling, but to their credit Wellington’s opening pair saw them off.
They gave way to Seb Coe and Barry Manley and the accuracy of the Sampford Arundel attack continued and a breakthrough came when Coe trapped Nicholls LBW for 16.
Thom Trott lifted a ball to the boundary for his first scoring shot, but was caught by Andy Childs to give Coe a second wicket.
Andy Perry joined Smit to add what could be considered one of the vital partnerships of the Wellington innings as they got the score close to 100.
Smit bound the Wellington innings together with an innings that eventually totalled 88no and he made a big difference from Wellington’s point of view.
Good late support came from Richard Short and Sam Cook and in the end Wellington won with 5.2 overs to spare and level things up at one away win each in terms of results in this fixture for 2006.