The Eastern Counties competition isn't likely to follow other counties and adopt a limited overs format as suggested by player Noel Gibbons earlier this week.

Eastern Counties Cricket Association president Harold Millett responded to criticism levelled at the competition's governing body by the veteran Bailey's Bay all-rounder earlier this week.

Gibbons hit out at the decision by champions St. David's on Saturday to bat for 92.4 overs before declaring at 5.17 p.m., leaving Bay to score an impossible 261 runs in 21 overs. Gibbons, who was playing his last county match after 30 consecutive years in the competition, thinks the organisers should introduce overs to ensure a result.

"Before we even consider that, the other alternative could be to take another look in the direction of introducing another hour,'' said Millett this week.

"It looks like tit for tat,'' added Millett, a former St. David's opening batsman who remembers his team doing the same thing when they held the cup.

"You've heard the old adage `you put us in, huh?' Bay had St. David's reeling and the biggest mistake they made was when they missed Albert Steede.'' Millett admits some might have expected a sporting declaration but he doesn't fault stand-in captain Del Hollis for taking a cautious approach. To declare and lose would have made him a very unpopular man in St. David's.

Much hinged on the toss which Bay won and they seized the upper hand by having the champions in early trouble by getting two quick wickets. Irving Burgess' dropping of century-maker Steede before he scored proved crucial to Bay's hopes of regaining the cup.

The wicket, which drew some concerned comments from St. David's at the start of the game, was lively early on before settling down.

"As they say in Euchre they had the `boss Benny' and that is how they played their hand,'' said Millett. "We feel the challenge of the captain and winning the toss is vital.'' The decision two years ago to follow Cup Match's lead by switching the venue yearly is likely to be the last major change to the Eastern Counties for some time. That move, which now sees the matches alternating between Lord's and Sea Breeze Oval, was initiated by Bay who were then the champions.

"The year about is working,'' said Millett. "It was courageous of Bailey's Bay who initiated it and they must be given credit for taking a bold step.

"In some areas of their membership they probably took criticism for doing that.'' The Eastern Counties competition started in 1904, two years before Cup Match.

And like Cup Match, changes are not made without much deliberation.

"We are pretty much founded on the same scale of Cup Match,'' said Millett who pointed out that results were regularly achieved in the Eastern Counties.

Even without overs the Eastern Counties, as the oldest, is the most popular of the three counties.

"We are proud to say that the competition has withstood,'' said Millett.

"Compare the cricket with the counties that have introduced overs cricket ... if overs brings success then where has the patronage gone?'' Millett said a review of the three-match series would be held after the final.

THE Bermuda Society for the Blind will again benefit to the tune of $200 each time a batsman in this year's Cup Match hits a six.

Following the idea's success last year when the Society received $3,400 as a result of 17 sixes, Cable and Wireless will again make donations to the charity in the name of the players and the clubs scoring the runs.

Cable and Wireless spokesman John Instone said: "The original idea came from a suggestion by one of our Hamilton staff, Malcolm Raynor, and bearing in mind Cable and Wireless' long association with cricket, both here and in the Caribbean, we thought it would be a novel way of making one of our regular annual charitable donations.''