Wellington has earnt a place in the WEPL region’s Second Group stage of the National Club T20 Competition following dominant performances in the First Round stage last Sunday when they hosted an excellent day’s cricket with visiting Clubs been Taunton Deane CC from the Premier Two (Bristol and Somerset) Division and Minehead CC who play at Wellington’s level in the Somerset Division.

The Red and Blacks completed a six wicket win over Taunton Deane and a 65 run win over Minehead to progress and here is the story of their first game and the meeting between the two visiting Clubs…

The Deane were asked to bat first and found Ian Hewson in frugal form with the ball as he claimed the opening wicket when Fraser was well caught on the boundary by Jack Beal for 16.

Jake Nichol took the new ball from the other end for Wellington and let just five runs go in three overs of good medium paced bowling.

Will Derrick got rid of McKee as Mark Bray took a good catch on the turn and at 57-3 Taunton Deane were in a decent enough position after 11 overs, but Arron Campbell’s introduction to the attack saw him turn (literally) the game on its head as he took 6-7 in 3 overs to wrap the Deane innings up for just 72 in 16 overs – he removed Mellor for 26 and it was a procession thereafter to leave Wellington needing 73 to win.

It was not easy task for the Red and Blacks to get to where they needed to be as spin in the form of Deane skipper Burgess took 3-10 in four overs, but skipper Luke Desave and Aks Latifi settled any nerves with an unbroken stand of 36 for the fifth wicket to see the hosts home in 12.4 overs with knocks of 28no and 13no respectively.

In the second game of the day Deane and Minehead played each other and served up a classic match with Deane winning off the last ball as it was hit for four having seen Minehead make 110-7 – this saw Wellington were to play Minehead to complete the day’s action with much to play for.