Wrington fall short at Mells

CAPTAIN Tim Ledbury and Mike Clements made a productive start after winning the toss and electing to bat on dry flat wicket at Mells.

With the score on 40, Ledbury (23) was caught by A Haywood after the keeper had spilt the ball of the bowling of S Edwards. With Mickey Edmunds (5) and Richard Spink scoring a cheeky 15, both being bowled; Wrington's projected score of 200 plus was looking unlikely.

Wrington slumped to 93 for 5 in the 26th over due to excellent tight line bowling of D Carter and C Seviour, the latter finally removing the limpet Clements for 36 after being frustrated with limited balls to score from and cutting a short ball to point.

The Wrington innings needed saving and Marshall Clements Junior and Adam Whiting began the fight back by stopping the wickets falling and carefully putting different innings together.

Clements anchoring and letting Whiting play his varied selection of well time drives, late cuts and powerful blasts over the infield. The pair put on an unbeaten sixth-wicket stand of 92 to close the innings on 183 for 6, a score at one point that looked unlikely for the visitors.

Wrington knew that early wickets and tight bowling from the outset would be required to defend the small below par score, unfortunately they did not get this as the opening bat of N Harber pulled and cut the short balls that were thrown down at him, reaching his 50 in the 10th over with six fours and two sixes, as Mells cruised to 85 in the 16th over for the loss of one wicket, needing just 100 runs from the remaining 24 overs, the match looked over.

However, due to some mind games and clever bowling from Whiting who trapped Harber leg before for 80, the Wringtonians drew themselves back into the match as the high scoring rate began to fall as Mells reached 130 in the 25th over for four wickets.

The fragile batting line-up that had failed several times previously, began to show cracks as the Wrington bowlers began to believe again as noise, banter and enthusiasm returned. The Wrington man of the match, Adam Whiting, Anton Lovatt and Dan Tapson all claimed Mells victims without troubling the scorers.

The win for Wrington looked on as passion and pride filled the Wrington players, with Marshall Clements Senior and Simon Lee taking fantastic catches as the Mells reply fell apart.

In the 36th over Mells now required 14 runs with three wickets but unfortunately for Wrington they just scraped home with 11 balls left with just one wicket remaining and now join Wrington in third place on 23 points. Wrington now face the difficult challenge of second placed Bath next week at the Rec.

Wrington move through comfortably to the second round of the Butcombe Bitter 20/20 North Somerset Cup, with victory over Nailsea 3rds. Wrington won the toss and invited Nailsea to bat, the Wrington opening bowlers passing the bat and causing the batsman trouble, with A Lovatt taking the wicket of Keith Parsons.

A series of run-outs with excellent fielding from Mickey Edmunds, Dan Tapson and Seb Williams meant the Nailsea team were in real trouble, only J Leeson (12) and J Billows (13) getting into double figures. Captain Edmunds and Tim Ledbury picked up three wickets apiece as Nailsea finished on 52 all out in the 15th over.

Wrington opened with Andy Robinson (6) and Williams (7) looking to knock the runs off quickly, but both players who looked masterful in the nets failed to take this form to the wicket and were both out cheaply.

With the loss of Dan Mcmullen (0) soon after, Nailsea's tails were up; but with such a small total to defend and a long batting line-up Wrington knocked the runs off in the 11th over with Edmunds and Ken Duthie not out for 19 and 21.

Edmunds was pleased with his team's performance and looks forward to inviting Downend 3rds to the Rec for the quarter-final in August after beating them the two previous years in the second round.

An abnormal number of unavailable players in the club meant that a weakened Wrington 2nds welcomed a Weston Eaglets side to Rec who had similar squad problems for this encounter.

McMullen won his first toss of season, and against much of the general feeling in his dressing room, elected to field first, mainly due to his depleted bowling attack, but relatively strong batting line-up.

There were immediate murmurs in the field however as the Weston skipper Lawrence was creaming the openers all around the park. He did not keep it to the openers either, hitting a massive straight six against the tight bowling of Fowler and equally dominating coach Robinson (8-0-35-1).

The visitors raced to 100-3 from 19 overs, looking to set an un-chaseable 200-plus with the ominous looking Lawrence. McMullen then however took the huge gamble of introducing the slow bowling but big turning Vowles (3-0-7-1) who made the biblical breakthrough getting Lawrence caught behind for 62.

The rest of the Weston line-up struggled, with the Eaglets eventually being bowled out for 158 in the 39th over, a score which in the end was probably 20 more than they should have got, largely thanks to the mature batting of the young Knight (11 not out).

Bowling performances of note included Duthie (6-0-16-1) and Dave Fowler who stepped up to fill the bowling void with an important 8-0-36-4.

Wrington knew that this was almost a par score at the Rec but also knew they had a strong batting line-up so approached the chase in a confident manner. This confidence was however quickly dampened with Crocker (8-0-46-3) getting a wicket with the first ball of the innings.

Crowe (23) and Bright then steadied the innings until Bright's eventual dismissal, for a characteristically effortless 58 from 59 balls, brought a slight stutter with Wrington being reduced to 126-5. However, the inform Duthie (25 not out) and Robinson (36 not out) saw the hosts home, reaching 162 in 24.1 overs to increase their winning run to six games and remain top of the league by four points. The Seconds next travel to Bath Exiles who, despite losing last week, are also in an impressive stretch of form.

Highlights of the game for Weston were the two d�butantes J Knight and A Penwell with both of them contributing with the bat and taking a wicket each. Weston man of the match was Jon Lawrence.