IN this Sunday’s Dixon Air Conditioning Twenty20 finals day at Westhoughton the first match is between Horwich and Farnworth at 10.30am.

The second semi is between Westhoughton and Kearsley at 2.15pm with the final 5.45pm.

The winner will take part in the area finals at Rochdale Cricket Club on July 30, with the winner being only one match away from the national semi-finals and final which will be televised on Sky Sports in September.

For the later stages of the competition clubs will be without overseas professionals and overseas amateurs.

This could hit Horwich and Farnworth in particular who have both, although it is possible some of the clubs from other leagues could be similarly affected.

The two players to score more than 300 runs, Qaiser Abbas and Brett Pelser are both overseas, although of the five players to exceed 200 runs – Ryan Ayres, Phil Ingram, David Tantsis-Hall, Hasnain Abbas and Adil Nisar – only Tantsis-Hall is not a UK resident.

Ayres, incidentally, is the competition’s most valuable player to date. Six bowlers have taken 10 wickets or more – Robbie Holgate 14, Adil Nizar 13, Jack Scott and Lewis Haydock 12 each, Majid Majeed 11 and Adam Newton 10 and all would be eligible for England Cricket Board stages of the competition.

Again the competition has been a relative success, with most clubs supporting the move from four to six matches.

Last autumn a suggestion to increase the number of games was turned down and then belatedly reinstated.

Unfortunately this was after the deadline for the submission of our fixtures to the Lancashire Cricket Board for their handbook, otherwise it would have been possible to change some of the Sunday fixtures around and reduce the number of three-match weekends.

Next season it should be possible to move some of our Hamer Cup matches to earlier or later in the season leaving six weeks from the late May Bank Holiday with cricket just on Fridays and Saturdays.

Perhaps the LCB can be persuaded to do something similar with the Lancashire Knockout as most of the major leagues now play midweek t20 cricket.

Horwich’s defeat at Burnley last Sunday now leaves the Bolton League, along with the Pennine, Northern and Ribblesdale Leagues plus the Palace Shield without representation in the quarter-finals.

Five of the eight places are taken up by Lancashire League clubs, although some may argue Clitheroe were in the Ribblesdale League last season.

Two other clubs are from the Liverpool Competition with Prestwich the sole representative from the three leagues in Greater Manchester.

This now leaves the Bolton League with three free Sundays. Hopefully we won’t have any more washouts leaving people regretting the decision not to replay matches.

Returning to the Lancs KO it is noticeable that seven of the clubs are from leagues that permit only one player from overseas in their teams – the LKO only allows one overseas per team – and the other club have chosen to import just one player from overseas. Coincidence? Time will tell.