Plans are currently on the drawing board to launch a weekly sixes league under the lights at Somerset Cricket Club, revealed club treasurer and chairman of cricket Anthony Bailey yesterday.

The West End club had a state-of-the-art lighting system erected at their ground last month. The new system features four 90-foot poles each fitted with 24 individual ?high-end? bulbs.

Though Bailey refused to elaborate at great length on the new initiative, he did divulge the Cup Match champions will stage one of two Cup Match trials under the lights.

?This is something we are looking at and expanding it to try and embrace the entire Island,? he revealed.

?We will be sending out invitations to other clubs inviting them to join in a regular night league with us.?

Bailey hopes to receive positive feedback once invitations are sent out.

He added: ?We are looking at staging a weekly sixes league complete with coloured clothing. We would like to actually start sometime this year.

?The lights are actually functioning now and we can operate them if we want. But we are presently waiting for Belco to give us three-phase transformers ? that?s what they will be working off permanently. But they were already tested with regular current, and they worked fine.?

With July pencilled in as a very hectic month for local cricket, Somerset, faced with holding only one trial match prior to the annual Cup Match classic, staging an additional trial under the lights was very ?important?, said Bailey.

?There is only room for one trial match in the present schedule and so we decided to hold a trial match over the course of two-days (two-evenings). We could play up until a certain time on the first day and then cut off and come back the next and finish it off,? he said,

?The need to have more than one trial match before Cup Match is important. Having just one trial match is not fair to the players because you can?t expect a player to come up here (Somerset Cricket Club) receive only one chance and fail.

?Then we have to judge them on their failure and also comparing what they have done during the season . . . sometimes your final trial match overshadows what you have done over the season and people tend to look at you differently.?

As for the lighting system, Bailey explained: ?They are actually better than the ones that are up at the National Sports Centre. They meet international standards for both football and cricket.?

Somerset are also set to play two matches of Barbados? tour of the Island under the lights at their ground in early autumn.