THE future of inter-league cricket in Lancashire could be in doubt, and will have to be given very serious consideration by leagues in the coming months.

The Bolton League have taken part in inter-league cricket since the early 1960s, but it was only in the 1970s a knockout competition was devised for the leagues in Lancashire.

For many years the competition involved the same eight leagues – Bolton Association, Bolton League, Central Lancashire League, Lancashire County League, North Lancs League, Northern League, Ribblesdale League and Saddleworth League.

The Northern League were always the league to beat in the early years, but if you could catch them in the earlier rounds, when their better players were still involved in club National Knockout matches, you had a chance. They were rarely beaten in a final.

As the Northern League began to be less successful at both league and club level, the Bolton League took over as the major player, winning the competition five times in seven years in the 2000s.

Although the Liverpool Competition joined and the Northern League returned, the demise of the Bolton Association along with the combining of the CLL and Saddleworth Leagues as the Pennine League, plus the withdrawal of the Bolton League, the number of teams in the competition was reduced to six.

This season the North Lancs League have withdrawn, and with the future of the Pennine League still uncertain the competition may become unviable, especially if the Ribblesdale League become part of the Lancashire League set-up and lose their identity.

Hopefully an under-18s competition will continue, possibly with the matches played midweek after the A Levels have finished.

Ten years ago the Bolton League introduced run-rate calculations based loosely on those used in the Lancashire League.

After the first season it was noted the calculations tended to favour the side batting second and the figures were modified.

With a couple of further minor changes the rule has been accepted by almost everyone, and was in use for the first three weekends of the Bolton League programme this season.

There was quite a lot of opposition initially. Written down the calculation appeared to be quite a lot more complicated than it actually was.

Teams heading for defeat before the rain came found they were still heading for defeat when play resumed when perhaps they were hoping the recalculation would somehow make the game more even.

It was difficult to convince some of the older players of the benefits of the run-rate system, but this was possibly because they realised they had been playing a quarter of a century or more and packing up and going home early when there was an alternative.

The major fault with the run-rate calculation was it only took the loss of overs into consideration, not the fall of wickets.

With the introduction of CricHQ there is a built-in Duckworth/Lewis calculator which accounts for both elements, and there is no reason why this cannot be used next season, or even this year during the knockout stages of the Peter Stafford Trophy.

Almost all the Bolton League scoreboards can cope with the additional information that needs to be displayed.