AUSTRALIAN cricketer Mike 'Chuck' O'Rourke will be the new professional for Bolton League side Egerton next season.

The player is no stranger to Bolton cricket having played over here regularly since 1997.

After helping Greenmount win the Hamer Cup in 2000 he did not play in England last summer but his marriage to Bolton women's cricketer Lucy Cunliffe means he can obtain a work permit to make a return to Egerton.

He currently holds two batting records at both Egerton and Greenmount. At Egerton his score of 181 is the highest individual innings by a player in the club's history and his total of 1,315 runs in 2,000 is the best in a season by an amateur.

That was a repeat of the feats he set at Egerton in 1997, his top score of 146 not out making him the club's highest ever amateur run scorer in a season with 1,166.

O'Rourke is also the only player to have scored 5,000 runs in the first five years of a career in the Bolton League

All the League officials were re-elected to the committee although two co-opted members, David Seddon of Egerton and Derek Derbyshire of Horwich both resigned. Their places were taken by Heaton's Rod Sandiford and Farnworth Social Circle's John Hutchinson, the League's junior chairman.

The annual meeting also made two rule changes. After a series of complaints concerning scoreboards it was decided that the batting side's total should be updated immediately a run is scored with batsmens' total updated at the end of the over.

Also no player can be transferred between clubs twice within one year, although they do have the right of appeal to the league.