THIS week’s column was going to be a review of the Area T20 semi-finals and final at Bradshaw Cricket Club involving Horwich from the Bolton League, Ormskirk from the Liverpool Competition, Chorley from the Northern League and Moorside representing the now-defunct Pennine League.

However, overnight rain followed by a heavy downpour on Sunday morning gave the umpires little alternative than to call all the matches off at 10am as the pitch was under water.

Horwich and Moorside were already at the ground, but, fortunately, the other two teams were stopped from travelling. The competition resumes this coming Sunday.

While most, if not all the eight T20 area finals were washed out, Westhoughton did manage to play and defeat Adlington in the Peter Stafford Trophy.

The victory put them in second place and they join group winners Walkden, Horwich, Kearsley, Farnworth and Bradshaw in the quarter-final, along with the two other runners-up with the best run rates – Atherton and Lostock.

In the second teams, the eight quarter-finalists are Heaton, Astley Bridge, Farnworth SC, Bradshaw, Little Hulton, Darcy Lever, Westhoughton and Kearsley.

The draws will take place tomorrow at 7.30pm at Farnworth Social Circle.

While I sit writing this column on a computer, awaiting a confirmation text from one of the clubs in next Sunday’s T20 finals, it strikes me how ways of communication have developed dramatically over the last 30 to 40 years.

When I first became junior secretary back in 1980, both Peter Stafford, who was league secretary, and I used to handwrite the minutes, which were then read out at the start of the next meeting for approval. Communication was by telephone. When Neville Neville became secretary in the late 1980s he began typing the minutes and mailing copies to clubs, which not only speeded up proceedings at the next meeting but allowed clubs to post the minutes on their notice boards.

When I took over from Nev in 1990, I purchased a basic type of word processor and continued to mail the minutes to clubs.

There was still a problem with correspondence that I received, this still had to be read out loud in meetings.

In 1998 I got my first computer and, with it, email.

There was no great transformation to the procedure as most league officials and club representatives still had to have their minutes posted to them, but gradually everyone had email and could receive their minutes the day after the meeting.

Incoming mail could too simply be forwarded to committee members saving a lot of time at meetings.

I first started reporting cricket matches in the mid-1970s when I would phone a scorecard and brief report to the Bolton Evening News for inclusion in The Buff which came off the press around tea time in the cricket matches, just after full time for Bolton Wanderers.

After the match I would phone the scores to Peter Stafford for the Press Association, and these would appear in some Sunday newspapers the following morning.

By the 1980s they would also appear on the Teletext information service on television on the Saturday evening.

Today with CricHQ it is possible to pick up ball-by-ball coverage on a phone from first and second-team matches in the Bolton League and other leagues.