Wellington’s visit to Gipsy Lane’s renowned batting track saw runs plundered in the first thirty overs of Taunton’s innings, but the Red and Blacks had very much the better of the closing overs as the WEPL Premier Two side’s innings lost some of its momentum come the end of their 40 over allocation.

Taunton won the toss and batted first and saw their overseas player Marcus Harris smash 118 all told as his quality shone through as the Western Australian first class player was a cut above.

Ian Hewson removed his opening partner, the former Wembdon player Sam Puddy, when he was well caught low down by Luke Desave in the covers for 14 as Taunton’s opening stand was worth 30.

Taunton skipper Jack Cooper joined Harris and made 79 excellent runs and at 201-1 in 29 overs Wellington were having a hard task with the ball – not for the first time the opposing side had found the batting friendly conditions at this excellent facility being the dominant factor, but 201-1 became 257-7 in 40 as Luke Desave (2-31 in eight) came back and took two wickets in his second spell, Ian Hewson did the same to take 3-53 all told and Arron Campbell’s 2-57 in 8 overs was a fine comeback.

This was still a fine total by Taunton, but Wellington had restricted them late on and had caught well too with Luke Desave, Paul Short and George Hooper all taking good chances between them and Wian Gouws let not one bye through all innings and took a smart leg side catch too.

Wellington added 54 opening wicket runs through Paul Short and Robin Davies and they were untroubled against former county player Ben Phillips who bowled with pace and aggression.

That both were run out when set on 25 and 17 respectively gave Taunton two gift wickets.

Wian Gouws made 27 in good time and Alex Sparks 24 as Wellington passed the three figure mark around the drinks interval, but there was time for just four more overs after this break before the rain intervened as it increased in intensity and the match was abandoned as a draw.