WELL the T20s are over for another year apart from the area finals this coming Sunday at Bradshaw, in which Horwich will represent the Bolton League.

Our own competition finals last Sunday saw three entertaining games with some fine batting, and big hitting, which sent people out of the ground to retrieve the ball from nearby gardens, woodland and even a stream.

On the whole there had been some good fielding but it did show catches win matches as the Horwich professional was dropped before he had scored.

He then went on to make a hundred.

Now we have all witnessed some big hitting at local grounds, but it brought to mind a Hamer Cup match where the batsman was continually hitting the ball out of the ground.

This resulted in the club sending two young spectators out to station themselves across the road to await the ball appearing over the clubhouse roof.

It was fun and games all round – although the bowler didn’t think so unsurprisingly.

It's not only local grounds. Anyone watching the Roses T20 on Friday night witnessed some big hitting.

Spectators ducked on the new hotel balcony, the ball cannoned into the windows on the pavilion and then disappeared out into what normally is the car park area. All very entertaining stuff.

There has always been the question of what happens when the ball is lost.

Well it should be replaced with one of comparable wear.

That’s okay for county matches when they have a box of balls to choose from.

What happens in grassroots cricket? That is sometimes a problem for the umpire.

The spare ball provided may not represent one of comparable wear at the time it is needed.

For example, in a recent match the ball was lost in the 45th over and the spare looked almost new so another older ball had to be sent for.

Then there’s the problem of a ball being lost on the first delivery of a game.

That has actually happened to me when the ball was hit into the wooded area at a ground, and in spite of a lengthy search, it wasn’t found.

A new ball had to be sent for and bounced on the ground twice to make it one of comparable wear.

It very nearly happened again on Saturday when the first ball of the match was dispatched into the nearby houses, but fortunately it was retrievable after some scrambling over fences.