Wellington U13s maintained their improvement, but it just wasn’t quite enough to gain a victory when they travelled to Ilminster last Wednesday in a re-arranged Taunton and District Youth League fixture.

The hosts called correctly and decided to have first use a decision which looked to have backfired as Oliver Hansard took a wicket with his first ball.

Tom Hopkins shared the new ball and bowled tidily without success, but for Ilminster the county player JT Langridge went about his batting, dispatching bad balls to the boundary and quickly reached his retiring score of 30.

Archie Lyon-Taylor was next in to the attack and quickly got amongst the wickets as the home side looked to score runs quickly, and ,at 90 – 3, they looked to be taking the game away from Wellington.

Ollie Williams then took a wicket and Lyon-Taylor returned for his 2nd over and once he found his length, snapped up a magnificent hat-trick, leaving Ilminster all out on exactly 100 and Wellington feeling they had enough batting to challenge for victory.

Lyon-Taylor finished with figures of 6-18 in a superb individual display.

Skipper Callum Kinnear and Patrick Cole went out as openers, but again the county skills of Langridge had them both back in the ‘hutch’ with only 20 on the board.

Hopkins and Williams then took the score to almost 50 before Ilminster’s Charlotte Lamb got 3 quick wickets leaving the visitors on 66-7.

Hansard tried to hold the tail together, and found a willing partner in Oliver Buddin, but as the overs ran out, they swung the bat in vain and they were eventually all out 14 runs shy with 2 balls left unused.

With 4 players into double figures, it just needed 1 to push on and the target could well have been reached, but this was further evidence of the improvement which has seen a very young team gain valuable experience.