Broken fingers are the bane of a professional batsmen's life.

Any player who has played more than a few seasons of county cricket will break a finger at some stage.

Some players will do it more than once. The problems that Nasser Hussain and Alec Stewart, to name but two, have had with cracked fingers have been well documented.

Equipment manufacturers have put a lot of research into their gloves to try and come up with solutions.

Fibreglass inserts and extra foam padding on the middle and index fingers of the right hand, the most vulnerable area, are the norm these days but batsmen are still breaking fingers.

It seems the extra padding cannot deal with the rogue ball that jumps off a length and thuds into the batsmen's bottom hand.

But the solution might not be too far away. An interior designer from Sussex, by the name of John Cook, has been putting his cricket bat-making hobby to good use in designing a bat with a wooden extension to the blade that covers the bottom hand.

The bat is only a prototype at the moment and adjustments need to be made so that it has the same weight and balance as a traditional bat, but its shape has been okayed by the MCC.

The wooden extension to the blade does look a bit odd and traditionalists will baulk at the sight of it but more forward-thinking players will hopefully embrace it because the idea behind it is very sound.

In my mind it would completely alleviate the broken finger syndrome amongst batsmen and, if it takes off, it will change the shape of cricket bats forever.

This may be a frightening prospect in a game that, in England at least, has been slow to welcome innovation.

You only have to look at how long it has taken us to play floodlit cricket to see the truth in that sentiment.

Admittedly the climate is more suited to day/night cricket in Australia and South Africa but they have been playing floodlit cricket for decades.

It has only become commonplace in England in the last two years and in my view, there is still not enough of it.

Hove is still the only cricket ground in Britain with permanent floodlights which is remarkable when you consider the fact that each county will play several floodlit fixtures a year.

The average attendance at a Sunday League game played during the day must be at least a thousand down on the average for a day/night game.

Counties would soon recuperate the initially large outlay for the lights. The other benefit in these games is the amount of children they attract. Only by attracting more children to watch cricket will we begin to start competing with football in terms of popularity.

Next year will see a new 20-over competition whose format is ideally suited to floodlit cricket. I hope every county will make an effort to play as many of these games under lights.

They will only last about three hours and so spectators could watch the whole game after work.

Picture the scene in five years time. Two teams competing in a 20-over match under permanent lights at the Rose Bowl in Southampton.

The wicket is a bit up and down and Hampshire's star batsman gets a brutal lifter that shoots off a length.

Does he wince in pain and call on the physio to see if he has broken a finger? Of course he doesn't. The ball thudded harmlessly into the wooden extension of his new bat!

Thursday August 22