ANYONE watching the Royal London 50-over game between Lancashire and Nottinghamshire would have seen an umpire check the dimensions of one of the players' bats.

One of the new rules this year covers the size of the bat and a special gauge has been produced to help the umpire check the bat falls into the legal requirements.

This law was brought in because so much was being made of the thicker bats making it an uneven contest between bat and ball.

It is being implemented straight away in international and county matches and next year in minor counties games.

For grassroots cricket 2020 is the deadline so anyone thinking of buying a new bat needs to make sure it conforms to the new regulations.

On another matter in relation to that match, my loyalties were divided.

New Zealand Test player Ross Taylor, who was playing for Nottinghamshire, began his cricket career in my home town of Masterton and is well known to my family.

In the Lancashire side was Heaton’s home-grown Matthew Parkinson.

It’s always nice to see local lads make the grade on the county scene, however I was not sure how to feel when he was the bowler who took Taylor's wicket on the way to producing a career-best bowling performance of 5-68

Talking of personal bests, earlier in the week I umpired the Lancashire Under-13s girls' development team against Cheshire’s u13s at East Lancs Cricket Club and one young Lancashire girl reached her best-ever score of 81 in a well-composed innings.

They played two T20 matches and, while Lancashire won both quite easily it was good to see everyone involved.

Many had their first bowl of the season and both umpires were a little surprised at the accuracy of some of the bowlers.

There were less wides bowled in these games compared to some of the men’s cricket.

I was told of one game, not in the Bolton league I hasten to add, where 75 wides were bowled in one innings.

Wides are always a bone of contention.

It’s always the umpires' opinion and players have to remember they can’t make the ball into a wide by moving away from it.

Some batsmen move towards the ball and have a swing at it and miss and expect a wide to be called.

If they had stayed put it could well have been a wide. The umpire decides if it is wide when it passes the striker's wicket, not where the keeper ends up fielding it.