Wellington batted second for only the second time this season and carried off a fine, if a little nervy, four wicket Somerset League Division One win at second placed Westlands last weekend to regain third place in the division and Paul Short’s side are now 69 points behind leaders Taunton Outcasts with five games to go and a visit to the Civil Service Club side beckons on the first weekend in August.

As for this game Westlands opted to bat first on winning the toss and were well served by their numbers two, three and four after Scott Davey had held a chance with the score on 27 to get rid of Davis – who had made a ton at Wellington back in May – off of Michael Gill (1-26 in seven overs).

Boucher with 33, Gundry with 35 and Dyer with 42 all played good hands, but none of them went on to play the decisive innings that the home side needed to get to the 230 run mark that they set themselves, but at 122-2 with 15 overs to go, a strong, deep batting line up and a fast outfield on offer they should have done better than 172 all out – as it was Wellington’s fine spin attack dismantled the Westlands side as they added only another fifty runs for the loss of eight wickets as Paul Short, Rob Moysey and Max Capaldi spun their way through – Short with 1-28 in 7 got things going when he induced Boucher to tickle one behind to Aks Latifi – who kept wicket well for Wellington – and then Moysey took a fourth five wicket bag of the SCL season with 5-35 in 10.1 overs as he weaved his leg spinner’s web to great effect, an Aks Latifi stumping and fine boundary catches by Max Capaldi and Jake Nichol rounded off a fine effort from Moysey.

Capaldi with 3-37 in 8 overs gave a lesson in classical off spin as he bowled two with great deliveries that dipped late and another Aks Latifi stumping did the job for Wellington as they saw Westlands off for 172 with eleven balls to spare.

Westlands knew they had to win to maintain their push for the SCL title and came at Wellington hard, but Paul Short and Michael Gill resisted and then dominated with a stand of 83 in 22 overs that was ended when Gill – who had cover driven very well once more – was LBW for 45.

Mark Salter joined Short and played well to the off side until he was a second LBW victim for 17.

Short made a capital 65 and so nearly saw the job done when he was fourth out on 150.

Then a wobble set in as Wellington saw their score dip to 166-6 with two overs to go and tenacity was required in large doses and it came through Max Capaldi who whipped two fours off of Dyer to calm the Red and Blacks nerves, but he was run out for 11 and it was still nip and tuck, but Marc Holloway and Neil Hendy got the scores level and then saw Wellington home by four wickets with two balls to spare when Holloway came down the track and drove Dyer over the top for four.

This was a great comeback from the defeat at North Petherton last time out and has given the side a chance of exerting title style pressure in the latter stages of this season.

A home match with Staplegrove is next up.