A funny thing happened at St David’s County Cricket Club last Saturday. The second round of the Eastern Counties Cup was scheduled and an actual cricket match broke out.

Far from the shambles they were in the final last season, Flatts Victoria Recreation Club actually made a game of it before eventually going down by four wickets to holders Cleveland County.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the match came to its conclusion without incident, especially the organisers, who hitherto had been hiding behind the sofa as a competition steeped in tradition was being dragged through the mud.

The poor behaviour of the cricketers in the first round again exposed administrative weaknesses at this level, with the end result being that the Eastern Counties will take yet another look at its rules and come back with a tweak for next year.

What about ripping it all up and starting over again? And not in May 2016 when the next season has already started, but rather within a fortnight of this year’s final.

When the Cup Match clubs get it wrong, it hurts. It has to because it is the biggest event on our sporting, community and cultural calendar. But the match is only two days in duration and the pain dissipates relatively quickly (longer in the sporting sense if you are a St George’s sympathiser).

But when the Eastern Counties gets it wrong, however, cricket lovers — and those on the periphery who simply love a good day out — are subjected to a month of ineptitude and misery. This is why president Stephen Douglas and his executive need to get to grips with this mess so that county cricket can return to families having memories of a good time as opposed to the month-long tournament being beset with recriminations.

It is hard to get away from the belief that the Eastern Counties Cricket Association’s lawmakers are “making it up as they go along”. Why else, then, would there be constant calls for change?

A simple scan of the archives reveals repeated requests for new playing conditions, followed by the odd adjustment here or there, followed by more requests; many of which are typically self-serving, understood, but some that could put the competition on a path where there would be no need for future regimes to tinker on a whim.

The most vexing issue is the overs allocation — it seems teams and fans have called for change more times than Solomon changed wives. It is high time that organisers accept this will never go away and simply allow for both teams to bat 60 overs. The only proviso is that the draw remain on the table. Given the longstanding nature of this competition, just as in Cup Match, all efforts to turn the Eastern Counties into a limited-overs format should be strongly resisted.

There is nothing wrong with giving teams equal time at the wicket and also equal time to bowl out the team batting second that has been forced on the defensive. It is up to that team bowling second to figure a way to take ten wickets — that is a skill, and we want to encourage skilful use of the grey matter between the ears.

With that sorted, there are a number of other areas that require tightening, if for no other reason than to prevent the ECCA being forced into worst-case scenarios and not knowing what to do.

You do not have to read far into the bylaws, rules and regulations, and code of conduct to realise that there are holes. For instance, what does bylaw 9c mean?

On the face of it, the impression given is that as long as the first innings is over before 4.30pm, the match can be decided over two innings — as long as it finishes by 6.50pm. The consensus is that having the players stay on the field gives the fans their money’s worth. But what you see as a blowout may not end that way, according to active rules.

Have a read. This is bylaw 9b: “If the first innings is over before 4.30pm, then the teams will play a second innings. The second innings will commence ten minutes after the first has been completed. If the second innings is not completed by 6.50pm, then the match will be decided on result of the first innings and the second, incomplete innings will not count.”

Then follows 9c: “If two innings are complete but each team wins an innings, then the team with the greater number of runs are equal, then the holder of the cup shall retain the cup.”

What? “The team with the greater number of runs are equal ...”? Who authorised that for public consumption?

Nevertheless, it is very clear — or we presume so — that there are circumstances where a second innings can count officially towards the match. Try telling that to St David’s if they run through Cleveland in very quick time in the final.

But the rules are the rules, even one as ridiculous as this. A team that has had endured a poor first innings can rebound to win the cup as long as the second innings is completed by 6.50pm. There is nothing, then, to stop Cleveland being rolled over for 50 in the final, “lose” by four wickets by 1pm, continue to dismiss St David’s for a deficit of 50. then completely turn the tables on them in the second innings to win on aggregate runs. As long as that last St David’s wicket falls before the clock hits 6.50pm.

Imagine losing a match you thought you had already won owing to the existence of this “rule”, one that few have any knowledge of. Might that have helped Flatts in 2014 when they made 51? Maybe not.

It should never have come to this. There are too many well-intentioned people involved in the running of the Eastern Counties for its reputation to be so tarnished, chief among them Douglas.

Yet, as president of the ECCA and, more damning, vice-president of the Bermuda Cricket Umpires Association, he has overseen a shambles that has resulted in the loss of a team (Bailey’s Bay) and an umpire (Oscar Andrade).

Both may come again in time for next year’s series but the impression left from that first-round fiasco that miraculously ended with Cleveland surviving as cup-holders has left deep scars.

While Bailey’s Bay have continued in the domestic programme, Andrade, who has ranked among the top officials on the Island for the past five years and was slated to oversee Cup Match before withdrawing his services, will not be seen for the rest of this season.

Nonsense coming out of various meetings that the umpires indeed did not feel threatened, despite an umpire walking off the field armed with a stump and a police bodyguard and Shaki Darrell then being suspended for threatening behaviour, has resulted in an honest man walking away from a sport he loves.

Meanwhile, Darrell can play on because the Bermuda Cricket Board has not acted to extend his 14-game suspension to all cricket, as it should.

Nor has the governing body seen fit to intervene on the other four players who were either reprimanded or suspended. Which means that either Andrade, had he not taken an at least temporary leave of absence, or James McKirdy could have come face-to-face with their abuser on the cricket field on any number of occasions since July 18.

Unacceptable. That match on Saturday may have gone off without a problem but something still reeks in the Eastern Counties. And it is not some dodgy conch stew.