AS part of this year’s League Handbook, I wrote the following: “My only real misgiving at the conclusion of a good season of first-team cricket lay in the fact that, in all, 55 different professionals were used by the 14 clubs. This is clearly an unsatisfactory state of affairs and, hopefully, it won’t happen again.”

It is beginning to look, however, that it will.

Last Sunday, on the opening day of the 2009 season, of the 12 clubs that played, eight used a deputy professional due to the fact that their overseas pro had not arrived. These days the difficulties facing clubs attempting to get such a player into the country are many and varied, and the enormities of the problem are not restricted to our local clubs.

It is one that is spread over the whole of league cricket in the county and beyond, and the time may be rapidly approaching when clubs and leagues decide to dispense with the overseas pro altogether, which, while understandable, would be a great pity, as it would lower the standard of the local game.

On the other hand of course, it would free a considerable amount of money around the clubs which could then be spent in other, some would say, more pressing areas Sunday’s derby match between the two Farnworth sides Social Circle may well have created a small but significant piece of Bolton League history in that each of the 11 players used, including the professional, had all at some stage performed in the club’s under-18s side.

And in these days, when some players have more clubs than Arnold Palmer, that is no mean feat. If anyone can come up with a similar example I would be interested to hear from them.

A main factor in Circle’s win was the fact that when Farnworth replied after tea they were deprived of three batting overs, due to the excessive amount of time they had taken in bowling their overs. One reason for that was the huge amount of wides they bowled.

I’m not altogether in favour of the new rule under which any delivery going down the leg-side is deemed to be a wide.

What about the old good off-spinner who is turning the ball square with three short-legs eagerly anticipating the catch? He pitches on or outside the off-stump, and the ball misses leg. Is that a wide?

In the six games played on Sunday there were a total of 265 extras, which is a ridiculously high number. I think that rule needs to be reviewed at the end of the season.

The match in question was notable for a debut 50 from Farnworth’s Dave Morris, and he, along with Martin Axford and Lee Childs, seemed to have put their team on course for a win. But then man-of-the-match Chris Barrow stepped in dismissing both Morris and Childs and then took two further wickets to add to his 63 in the Circle innings.

Finally, it might be me, but has anybody out there got the remotest interest in the IPL? What was that Abba song title again? Money, Money, Money — It’s a rich man’s world.