A young off-spinner from Yorkshire named Azeem Rafiq could today become more popular at Glamorgan than our own Robert Croft!

The Twenty20 quarter final between Yorkshire and Durham was called off just 40 minutes before the start of play because of claims Rafiq played in a group game against Nottinghamshire while ineligible to do so.

That raised the possibility of Yorkshire being thrown out of the competition, leaving a door open for us.

An ECB panel is due to discuss the matter today.

It appears that bungled paper work caused the problem as Rafiq holds a Pakistan passport and has not properly registered as an English qualified player.

Now this to me is quite unbelievable as it's not a normal county game. This competition is fast becoming one of the most popular and lucrative in world sport!

You have to feel sorry for the Yorkshire players who have worked so hard to get to the quarter-finals and would have had one eye on the jackpot of being world Twenty20 champions and winning the £2.5 million prize! Someone has to be accountable for this and I fancy whoever it is could be back down the job centre on Monday morning!

Now this has thrown up a few options with a number of teams eligible for qualification! The rumour is that Yorkshire could replay their game against Nottinghamshire but to me that is outrageous as Yorkshire have broken the rules and therefore should be thrown out of the competition.

Now that leaves Notts, and, yes, you've guessed it, Glamorgan! We can qualify because we gained the most points as best runners-up in the group stages.

There is a good chance that we could play Notts in a play- off to decide the quarter- final spot against Durham, or, more probably, Notts could go through as they were the team that lost to Yorkshire.

It pretty much summed up our Twenty20 campaign really, getting close but just falling short. It was a very frustrating time as four of our games were lost to rain, more than any other county when, interestingly enough, not one game was lost to rain in the south division. It's a bitter pill to swallow as we only needed one more win to secure a place in the quarter-finals.

There has been some harsh criticism from certain parts of the media that our poor start to the season has been more club standard than first class.

One more win from our four rained off games would have meant qualification, and I'm sure everyone, including the media, would have been applauding our fine start to the season. It just shows how small the margins can be in sport and especially professional sport.

While on the subject of the media, it's my view that its power is ever growing.

The media can influence many things, especially when it comes to selection of teams, including national teams. It's the same in any sport, rugby, football and cricket.

I have often seen media commentators, sometimes former players themselves, over praise or defend players they favour.

They know there is an audience of thousands and that what they say reaches the selectors.

In my opinion such comments do, all too often, influence selection.

So it's back this week to what I call the bread and butter,' the county championship.

Having had a week off the boys returned for training this week knowing the game against Essex on Friday is very important.

You may think it's an unusual time for a cricket team to have a week off in the middle of summer, but it's just the way the fixtures work out and I feel it came at a good time after the disappointment of the Twenty20. It's a good time for the lads to spend time with their families and recharge the batteries as we don't get much time off from now until the end of September.

Friday's game has huge importance as we struggled in our previous championship games. We need to get back to playing some good basic cricket with bat and ball. Being boring is probably the best way to describe it, batting for long periods and bowling lots of maidens.

Essex will be on a high after there recent success in one day and Twenty20 format, but it is a challenge that we will be prepared for. It is going to be difficult as they have one of the best leg spinners in world cricket in Danish Kaneria.

He is a proven performer and we will be practising hard this week to try and combat him. We sit at the bottom of the table at the moment but a couple of wins could send us near to the top in a tight league giving us some momentum going into the Pro40 league at the end of the month.

Hopefully, we will make it to the Twenty20 finals and be victorious, but if not then I would put my money on Durham, who are probably the best one day outfit in the country.

Finally, I'd like to send my best wishes for a speedy recovery to my old cricket coach Eric Morcom who is recovering after an operation in Nevill Hall Hospital.