LAST Sunday was historic in the MEN Inter-League Trophy for all the wrong reasons, in that it was the first time in the competition's 28 year-old existence that all four first round ties were decided by a 'bowl-off' writes Peter Stafford

Obviously this is a second-rate way to decide a cricket match, although like its winter cousin, the penalty shoot-out, it can provide a normally meagre crowd with a few minutes of high drama.

Indeed for me - and how sad is this - the best three moments of the weekend occurred when Phil Ingram, Tim Barry and Paul Rayment each hit the stumps to put the League into a semi-final against the Central Lancashire League.

Tim Barry went to great pains to inform anyone within earshot that he has now taken part in three of these events and has hit the target each time, obviously in the hope that the message would spread around the umpiring fraternity that he bowls straight, and that his lbw appeals are not to be taken lightly!

After the bowl-off I began to wonder if there wasn't perhaps a better method of settling matters.

How about, for instance, a mini-match in which each member of one team bowls one ball to his opposite number in the other. The side batting first would all pad up, and line up behind the square-leg umpire, moving to the crease in turn to face their delivery. Single-wicket rules for run-outs would apply, three runs would be forfeited for each wicket lost, and, in the event of a tie, someone with a better cricket brain than mine would need to think of a way to decide the winner!

At least it would involve all five disciplines of the game, batting, bowling, wicketkeeping, fielding and captaincy, rather than just one, and it wouldn't take all that much longer to complete than the current method.

At the moment several clubs involved in the Thwaites LCB competition, along with the various Leagues' selectors, are suffering major headaches in trying to get all their matches played and attempting to pick reasonably strong inter-league sides respectively.

Surely the day is rapidly approaching when the MEN authorities and the LCB must get together and fix days for every round of the two competitions, with an instruction that all games must be finished on the designated days. They would need to choose the dates very early in order that league secretaries are able to work their domestic programmes around them.

MATT Parkinson had the unusual experience of hitting 84 at Bradshaw and seeing his batting average take something of a dive as a result, while Hirwani's five wickets at Heaton took his total to 40, not a bad figure for the first week in June.

Back with Farnworth Social Circle - and I'll try to complete this item without mentioning 'Dads Army' more than once - Ian Edwards and Paul Eckersley, who had not laid his hands on a bat since goodness knows when, put on an unbroken 83 to forge a 2nd XI nine-wicket win at Westhoughton. Mainwaring and Wilson would have been proud of them.

What do former Bolton League professionals Alan Thomas, Harry Farrar and Les Bulcock, ex-Australian captain Ian Chappell, and Mark Wallwork, once of Farnworth and Bradshaw, have in common?

Answer next week, or sooner should our paths cross.

Fair draw and a catch to remember

ON Saturday, I was at Piggott Park to watch Farnworth SC's draw against Westhoughton. In fairness, it was the best kind of draw, in that Westhoughton, batting first, hit a respectable total, after which Circle had a good go at their target until realisation set in that it had drifted out of their reach.

Alan Gaskell and Steve Parker set the scene with a lucrative stand. What a fine, uncomplicated player Alan Gaskell is. He stops the good 'uns and thumps the bad 'uns and, that, basically, is what batting is all about.

Towards the end of the innings Abdur Khan and Mark Atherton weighed in with the kind of late partnership that Circle could have done with later in the game, and the end of the innings was notable for the most remarkable caught and bowled that I've ever seen.

Mike Crookson crashed a Tony Bradley delivery out toward the mid-wicket boundary where Tim Barrow, running backwards, went for a one-handed catch. Realising that he was about to back over the boundary line, he somehow contrived to throw the ball back towards the middle of the field where a grateful Bradley completed the dismissal. All of which begs the question -- had Barrow only managed to throw the ball say, five or 10 yards and it had dropped on to the grass, would the umpire have given Crookson out?

Circle's second-wicket stand between Richard Hope and Quasir Rashid matched Gaskell and Parker's, and at just over 100-1, they were winning the game. Hope in particular batted superbly, hitting one memorable front-foot drive that fairly scorched through the otherwise slow outfield to the mid-wicket boundary. But after Barrow had been acrobatically caught by wicketkeeper Wayne Luntley, Circle just didn't have enough fuel left in the tank to keep the momentum going.

Abdur Khan and Darren Preston took all the wickets between them, and deserved their good figures, and I thought that the final points split, 14-7, just about reflected the two sides' contributions to the game.