HOW nice it was to leave sweaters, thermals and fleece-lined umpires' jackets behind as another cricket season got underway on Saturday in glorious sunshine with the Peter Stafford Trophy group matches.

Unfortunately that was not to be for all teams as, due to inclement weather preceding the week leading up to Saturday, some grounds were not fit to stage a game.

These matches will be played on a Sunday in June.

All credit to the hard work the groundsmen put into trying to get grounds fit but some were beaten at the last minute in spite of two fine days previously.

This season sees the biggest shake-up of the laws of the game since 2000 with approximately 81 changes, some minor, some major.

I very nearly had to enforce one new law during my match as I had to watch closely as two batsmen took their guard outside the popping crease and their stance was very close to the protected area.

This is an area of the pitch contained within an imaginary rectangle measuring one foot either side of the centre stump and starting five feet in front of the popping crease running the length of the pitch to five feet in front of the popping crease at the other end.

Bowlers have been used to getting warnings for running on this area.

It was thought it was unfair just to punish bowlers so now the new law is for batsmen as well.

He shall not adopt a stance in the protected area or close to it, so that frequent encroachment is inevitable. This does not stop a batsman taking a guard outside the popping crease, nor occasionally moving down the pitch to play at the ball, however continually doing this is classed as being unfair.

Once he sees this happen, the umpire will call dead ball if the bowler has not entered his delivery stride, otherwise he shall wait till the ball is dead and inform his colleague. The batsman is given a first and final warning which applies throughout the innings to all incoming batsmen.

If a batsman does it again then the umpire at the bowler's end shall disallow all runs, return the batsmen to their original ends and award five penalty runs to the fielding side.

I know to some batsmen, it could be trying to break a habit of a lifetime but they could find themselves giving five penalty runs away.