Wellington Cricket Club

With having to concede the match with Frome the week before Wellington 2nd XI went into this Somerset League Reserves Competition Division One match with Cheddar knowing that they are relegated and will be playing in Division Two next season, but the side gave a good account of itself before going down by 36 runs to last season’s Division Two winners.

Cheddar opted to bat first and Adrian Lee and Jake Nicol each got a wicket in their opening spell as the cloudy conditions made swing bowling a good option to practice.

George Coate got rid of D.Stacey who had made 120 in the reverse match back in June and at 51-4 Cheddar were rocking a little, but Greyshon with 62 and Russett with 26 steadied things up for them, but Wellington did not let them get away too far as Sam Murdock and George Hooper bowled their medium pacers well in the mid-innings period.

Richard Short and Alex Troake did a good job for Wellington before Adrian Lee (2-32) and Jake Nicol (3-49) claimed late wickets to leave the home side needing 181  to win.

After a wicket was lost at 13 Trevor Brooks and Kevin Crout added exactly fifty for Wellington’s second wicket and this was a good base to push on from, but when Brooks was bowled for a fine 33 the rot set in and Wellington collapsed from 63-1 to 86-6 with Crout holding firm.

He added 17 for the seventh wicket with Jake Nicol and 21 for the eighth with David Derrick, but D.Stacey with 5-41 in 12 good overs saw that Cheddar prevailed in the end despite Crout’s top innings of 64.

Sam Murdock and Alex Troake added a pleasant fifteen runs for the last Wellington wicket, but the Red and Blacks second string were all out for 144 with 4.1 overs left and took sixteen points to Cheddar’s 34.