Wellington took on Evercreech in their first home match of the 2006 season and came away from a low scoring Somerset League Division One fixture with a slender one wicket defeat in what was a very low scoring match that saw only 177 runs scored for the loss of nineteen wickets.

Wellington opted to bat first in a fixture that had been postponed by just over two weeks due to a request from Evercreech so as to facilitate a wedding that the club membership had been invited to and an opening stand of 40 between Mark Salter and Rob Moysey gave not one hint of the flurry of wickets that was to follow.

Moysey was watchful in the early part of his innings before hitting over the top well as he took on spinner M.Ough and won the duel. The Wellington skipper was looking well set when he charged the same bowler once more, but was stumped for 26.

Salter was bowled next ball at the start of a passage of play that saw Wellington lose nine wickets for 33 runs as Satterthwaite (4-15 in 12 overs) and C.Ough (2-6 in 9.2 overs) ran riot in seamer friendly conditions.

They ran through a good looking Wellington batting line up with worrying ease and it was only a quickfire stand for the last wicket of 15 between Kevin Symons and Gary Tillett that got Wellington to a fourth batting point.

It was very nearly enough as Julian Smit ran in with good pace and hostility and reduced the visitors to 12-3, but a cautious and in the end match winning stand of 47 for the fourth wicket between Harding (30) and C.Ough (19) seemed to have dampened Wellington’s fervour, but now it was Evercreech’s turn to collapse in spectacular style as they slumped from 59-4 to 79-9 as Thom Trott returned to the attack and took 4-9 in 7 overs in his second burst – a spell that almost carried Wellington to an unexpected victory.
Gary Tillett spun his way to figures of 2-24 in 10 overs as he did his bit to make for a Wellington victory, but Holdway and Satterthwaite resisted all that could be thrown at them by the Red and Blacks as they batted for 9.2 overs for 10 runs, but this made the difference in the end for Evercreech.

Wellington had shown real fight with the ball, but their early season form with the bat is worrying with not a single half-century having been made so far in 2006, the pitches have been hard to play on, but on paper this batting line up should have returned more collective runs than it has so far.

Wellington took 13 points to Evercreech’s thirty.