WHEN the points deduction rule was introduced this year for slow over-rates, the most worrying aspect of it many minds, not least mine, was that it could prove a decisive factor in the destination of the League championship.

It still could, of course, but it's looking unlikely, unless Kearsley bowl their remaining 200 overs at funereal pace, lose two or three of their games, and Egerton win all theirs.

In fact, if all the deducted points were to be reinstated to each of the 10 clubs who have forfeited them, the only changes to the table as it stood this morning would be that Westhoughton would be three points clear of Tonge instead of level with them and Farnworth Social Circle would move up a place. The 2nd Team table would, as regards positions, remain exactly the same.

Anyone who reads this column regularly will be aware by now that I am against points deductions, and that, as a spectator, I don't have a problem with a long match. Always provided, of course, that the cricket is decent enough to keep me awake, which it usually is.

If all we are really interested in is getting the match over as quickly as possible, we could play all our games to Jubilee rules and be home every Saturday by tea-time!

No, if I were suddenly to be promoted from League President to League Dictator, perish the thought, every game would start at 1pm and finish at 8pm, with each side given a maximum of three hours 20 minutes in which to complete their 50 overs. There would be a tea-interval of 20 minutes, as was the norm for 66 years before cricket teas were transformed into five-course banquets! Any team failing to complete their overs in three hours 20 minutes would be fined £200, a punishment which, if they couldn't average four minutes per over, they would richly deserve.

It would allow captains to concentrate more fully on captaincy at the expense of clock-watching, or, to be more precise, 'watch-watching', and would encourage bowlers to utilise their normal run-ups instead of cutting them down merely for the sake of over-rates.

Drink intervals would, and should, be cut down to an absolute minimum, although why they are necessary at all in this, the age of The Bottle on the Boundary Edge, is beyond me.

Last week I watched Lancashire 2nd XI at Old Trafford, and one Lancashire player became so obsessed with his bottle that he was having a quick slurp after every ball. In fact he seemed to be much more interested in his bottle than in what was going on in the middle and, eventually, it had to happen, he lost the plot and ended up chasing round the boundary-rope after the ball with the bottle firmly clutched in his hand!

I can think of several captains I've played under who would rightly have taken a very dim view of that!

With regard to the other Great Debate -- that concerning overseas amateurs. One argument against them used to be that they exerted too great an influence on the winning or otherwise of the League championship. Without any doubt, that certainly was the case in the era of players such as Sandiford, Lones, Tucker, Marsh and Farhart, each of whom made huge contributions towards their various sides' league titles.

But I've been doing a bit of research, and, in more recent times, the last 11 seasons to be exact, the overseas players employed by championship sides have almost all produced far less significant figures. Matthew Bode, who hit 802 runs and took 31 wickets for Tonge in 1997 is a possible exception. Two others, Helmot at Little Lever and Hoffman at Kearsley, hit just over 700 runs, but then, in this day and age, that's nothing much out of the ordinary. Indeed, since 1988, four teams have managed to win the title without the need of any foreign aid at all..

That will not be the case this year, of course, and, some time very soon, perhaps even today, Jason Swift should be helping celebrate Kearsley's eighth championship title in the last 27 years and their first since 1993.

He may well also be celebrating the fact that, in addition to being Heaton and Little Lever's amateur record-holder, he is also Kearsley's.

The race is also on to secure a place as one of our representatives in the 2001 Lancs K.O. Competition. Greenmount, as cup-winners, and Kearsley, have already claimed two places, and the other three look like being Egerton, Westhoughton and Tonge, although a fighting finish from either Little Lever or Walkden could run them close. With only 42 points separating the four last-named clubs, that could just be one area where the deduction of points comes into the equation.

On Wednesday I went to Clifton to see Lancashire Over-50s squeeze narrowly into the Final at the expense of Middlesex.

It was the closest finish I've seen so far this season, only decided in the last over, and two things about the day stick in the mind.

Firstly, the superb facilities on offer these days at Clifton Cricket Club, in terms of the ground, its surrounds, and the impressive clubhouse, not to mention the general friendliness, so much in evidence around the place.

And secondly, Mel Whittle's performance with both bat and ball which had so much to do with Lancashire's win.

Oh yes, and thirdly, his summing up of the day's events, as he sat, flushed with success in the dressing-room. "Them as win can laugh, and them as lose can please themselves!" Except that, Mel being Mel, he didn't quite put it like that!