WELLINGTON’S hopes of lifting the Baker Cup for the first time ended on Monday when they lost to Taunton Deane in the final at the Cooper Associates County Ground, Taunton.

In front of a large crowd who were enjoying the evening sunshine Ed Mellor, the Deane captain, won the toss and chose to bat.

The Wellington bowlers kept it tight and in the sixth over Aaron Campbell accounted for Harry Smith, making it 24 for one.

Tenny Harlow joined Bertie Michael and they upped the run rate and took the total onto 86 when Michael was out for 46. bowled by Lakshan Edirisinghe.

Harlow remained at the wicket until the 16th over and had seen his side onto 112 when he was out for 39. Mellor came to the wicket and blasted 30 off 14 balls to help Deane to 155 for seven from their 20 overs. Edirisinghe was the pick of the bowlers, taking three for 48 from his five overs.

The Wellington reply started badly when they lost George Ruell to the first ball of the second over, but then gradually skipper Aaron Campbell and Edirisinghe started to take control., the latter taking three 4s off the fourth over which yielded 16 runs.

The second wicket pair had put on 65 in 8.4 overs when Campbell was bowled by Mellor for 26 in the 10th over.

Edirisinghe was in full flow but, on 36 which he scored off 24 balls, he was run out at the non strikers end by Sam Burgess.

From this point on the Deane gradually played their way back into the match, wickets fell and despite some late runs from Luke Desave who made 16 off 10 balls and an unbeaten 22 off 16 from Callum Hendy, Wellington ended on 143 for seven, a disappointing 13 runs short of their target.