THE final round in the group matches of the T20 saw me at Walkden for their match against Farnworth.

The ground was surprisingly dry considering all the rain that had fallen during the morning so credit to the groundsmen for getting the pitch ready.

Some big hitting in the match saw a small group of lads kept busy, leaping over fences to retrieve the balls that were dispatched out of the ground.

There was a total of 22 sixes in the match and that was from a pitch in the centre of the square.

Retrieving balls over the weekend became the talk among a group of umpires at the under-13s' finals day on Sunday.

I think I had a first on Saturday when a ball was hit into a nearby field surrounded by a fence with barbed wire curled over it, making it almost impossible for someone to climb up over it to get the ball back.

A spectator with a little dog decided to let the dog have a go in trying to get the ball by encouraging it to squeeze between the posts and look for it.

Unfortunately, that proved a thankless task and eventually the owner scrambled over the fence to get the ball himself with umpires and players alike breathing a sigh of relief when the spectator climbed back unscathed.

That was bettered by a tale of a ball hit out of the ground which went through the open window of a passing car.

Players were looking for the ball to no avail and didn’t believe the wicketkeeper who insisted they were wasting their time as it had gone in a passing car.

The driver discovered it a few miles down the road when they heard a rattling sound in the car and turned round and brought the ball back to the ground, asking "has anyone lost a cricket ball?”.

What a pity the weather intervened at my game on Saturday with the match evenly poised.

There was some good bowling on both sides, but not as good as I witnessed on Sunday with the Lancashire U13s' club competition finals day.

There are certainly some talented bowlers around the county and Longridge CC produced the performance of the day with nine out of the 10 dismissals being bowled in the semi-finals.

Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t quite produce the same performance against eventual winners Greenmount as one disastrous over made the difference in the end.

It was so nice to see the up-and-coming talent with some boys as young as 10 coping well with playing in an older age group.

Let’s hope they continue to play and not go the way of some who give up in their later teens.