Wellington’s indoor side were first on show last weekend at Wellington School for the second round of matches in the Cougar Cricket Indoor League and came away with a win and a loss from matches with local rivals Up The Grove (Staplegrove CC) and Sampford Arundel writes team skipper Marc Holloway.

Wellington v Up The Grove

Wellington won the toss and adopted the scoreboard pressure approach and batted first.

Wellington racked up a fine 146-4 thanks to an intense and hard working opening stand between Marc Holloway and Richard Henwood; both made the score board tick over rapidly and Wellington were going at 13 an over for the first four.

Henwood was out trying to force the pressure and this bought Paul Short to the crease who worked the angles well.

Holloway made it to 25 and Wellington was 50-1 off 4 overs.

Thom Trott and Aks Latifi both worked the ball well with both playing an array of expansive drives and strong hitting to gain maxima from the back wall.

Wellington was more than happy with this total and felt sure they could defend this.

Up The Grove replied with a spirited chase which saw both Gary Bishop and Brendan Craggs attacking the bowling from the off; they both raced on to retirement after 4 overs and this caused Wellington to reassess their bowling options.

Trott was bought into the attack and bowled some super lines just outside off stump and he was rewarded with fine figures, picking up a wicket for his efforts.

Adrian Lee bowled his three straight off with his third over causing particular trouble for the new batsmen.

Grove needed 36 from three overs with 4 wickets in hand; positive batting from Simon Cutler and their number three saw that they got this down to 26 off the last two.

Short came back into the attack and bowled a great penultimate over just going for six and combined with brilliant fielding from Trott and Lee this aiding him to pick up a wicket and a run out occurred too. 

With 20 required from the final over Grove’s returning openers Bishop and Craggs looked to run everything; eventually Craggs ran himself out thanks to a smart piece of work from Henwood and they could only muster six, thus handing Wellington a second consecutive win.

Wellington v Sampford Arundel

Wellington again won the toss and batted first.

Paul Short and Thom Trott opening up found it tough going against Seb Coe and Neil Hendy with Hendy conceding just two runs in his first over and Wellington was 13-0 after two.

Short was the first to go while trying to work the evergreen Hendy off his hip only to feather through to the keeper.

Trott and Aks Latifi went about rebuilding the Wellington innings which to be fair was not easy as Sampford hit their straps straight away with some excellently disciplined bowling which turned out to be the difference between the two sides. 

Trott – again looking comfortable with driving the ball to the back wall – was again playing well until he was caught off the wall within one of his retirement.

Wellington at this stage was 50-1 off 7 overs.

Latifi continued to flow, but perished on 22, three short of retiring, this left Wellington needing to accelerate and keep wickets for the final onslaught, this came in the form of Adrian Lee who continued his love for the straight drive by scoring the best part of twenty runs down the order whilst Richard Henwood recuperated at the other end.

Wellington just about crawled to 100-5, a below par score.

Sampford started their reply in fine style with Neil Hendy working the ball round well to all parts, he was batting particularly well as Thom Trott again found his line with the ball and was sending down some absolute beauties.

Hendy made his 25 and all the time Dave Kittow was also working hard to reach his 25 which he did and Sampford had amassed 60-0 off 5 overs.

Lee bowling better than his figures suggests.

Henwood came into the attack and quickly found his length and bowled really well in combination with Paul Short who applied a stranglehold on the Sampford scoring.

They did this to such good effect that they got Wellington right back into the game.

Sampford needed seven runs off the last two overs and Paul Short and Adrian Lee hit a purple patch; Short first clean bowled Coe, looking to finish it one ball and then he then tempted Andy Childs and Jamie Cooksley into making similar mistakes and had picked up three wickets for just one run.

Adrian Lee had obviously found a new lease of life and took two exceptional catches to help Short in this over.

Sampford needed six from the final over which they did thanks to Vince Milton and Hendy who worked the ball again into the gaps to finish with three balls remaining.

Thanks also go to both sets of players for an intense, but most enjoyable game of cricket.

Thanks go to David Derrick for umpiring both games for Wellington and to Bill Townsend for umpiring the Sampford Arundel game, also to Cougar Cricket for hosting.

Next week (Sunday 7th February) the team play Curry Rivel at 10.30am before a month’s break.