IT was an extremely busy bank holiday weekend for the BCL with T20s, league matches followed by cup matches which put a strain on both player and umpire availability.

Teams were reaching for the rule book to see if players were eligible for cup matches, and the umpires’ fixtures secretary was struggling to find sufficient umpires to cover all games.

It is certainly something that needs looking at for next season when so many games are to be played over the bank holiday weekend.

After a fortnight of fine weather, just when we wanted it to continue for the first round of the T20 competition on Friday, the heavens decided to open around about 5.30pm and grounds went under water. Only one escaped a complete washout and that was at Golborne where they managed to play a 10-over game against Little Hulton, a very entertaining game from all accounts with the winning run coming off the last ball.

The sun shone on Saturday’s games and the forecast suddenly changed for Sunday. With the threat of rain captains and umpires had to decide what was going to happen if it did rain.

Did they want to play the full number of overs or reduce them in case the forecast of rain at 5pm was correct?

At my match no one wanted to come back the following day so agreement was made a result would be obtained on the day and the full 50 overs were to be played.

Duckworth Lewis would be used to calculate the par score in the second innings and well done to the young scorer from Walkden who kept that score ticking over at the end of every over.

We did get a few spits of rain but the game was finished before the heavy rain came later.

Now catches win matches, just look at the England test match against Pakistan when during the Pakistan innings five catches were dropped.

Sunday’s game saw a few dropped catches but the winning team caught all but one outfield catch offered up, some excellent running catches they were too.

When running in to catch a ball the player often dives forward and the umpire has to make sure his hands are under the ball.

The player’s hands can be on the ground but under the ball.

An umpire gets one look and has to make a decision. We don’t have the luxury of action replays.

Sometimes an umpire may consult his colleague as he may be in a better position to give a decision on whether the ball was caught fairly.

If he is not able to help then the umpire has to go on gut feeling and first thoughts.