I am returning to a favourite subject this week; the proliferation of EU cricketers in county cricket.

It is an opportune time to re-vent my anger on this topic because Glamorgan fell foul of another one of these hired mercenaries last week down at Southampton, where Nic Pothas, Hampshire's South African born Greek, smashed a hundred to take the game away from Glamorgan.

What is important is not that it was the first time that Glamorgan have lost a match after asking the opposition to follow on (records are there to be broken) but that Pothas has played in three one day internationals for South Africa and still qualifies as a local.

I know this has been a much talked about subject, especially when myself and Edward Bevan are on air together on a Sunday afternoon, and there are no legal answers because of the free ranging EU employment laws. But the point I keep stressing is that the counties can do something about it. They can self regulate. They can decide that they are not going to sign these players because they are detrimental to the future of English cricket.

The counties should remember that they nearly all only survive because of a hefty £1.3 million hand out from the EWCB every year. That money comes from success at international level. If the counties continue to sign such players there will not be much future success at international level.

Two further stories this past week have reinforced or rather reawakened my ire at this. One was that Somerset are signing left armer Gary Gilder, born in Zimbabwe and currently playing for Natal, as a solution to their fast bowling travails. No thought of looking a bit closer to home of course. Straight into the cheaper side of the overseas market.

Gilder becomes Somerset's second EU player after another, South African batsman James Bryant, was signed at the start of the season. When I was at school in Monmouth we used to play against a number of schools in Somerset - Millfield; Queens College, Taunton; King's College, Taunton and Taunton School; and all of them were bristling with wonderful talent. I presume that all these excellent establishments are still producing such talent, and while I grant that some youngsters may well be attached to other counties, there must be enough for Somerset to be picking off. Where is it all?

Somerset also have a very fertile catchment area in the more South Western counties of Devon and Cornwall, so there should be no complaints of lack of talent to choose from. Their chief executive Peter Anderson is a good man with county cricket coursing through his veins but he can have some wacky ideas at times, especially regarding overseas players. Remember he was the man who signed Shoaib Akhtar just to play in a tourist match for Somerset. I think he believes that almost unlimited overseas players should be permitted per county, and he also does not believe that the players ( in the form of the PCA - Professional Cricketers Association) should be involved in decision-making processes; roundly criticising that body earlier this year when they unanimously agreed that they thought two overseas professionals per county was unacceptable. My second story arose from a friendly conversation with my old mate Andy Flower, whom I know well from my African winters of the early 1990s. I was innocently asking him about his housing arrangements when he dropped a bombshell. "Essex are paying for my house this year but next year when I qualify as a local...." "You what?" I exclaimed.

He already knew my feelings on the subject and seemed a little embarrassed about it, but was quick to point out that it was the system rather than his fault. He has signed a three-year contract to play for Essex. But he has a British passport (which he had even before marrying an English girl), so now Essex will be able to sign two other overseas players in order to strengthen their threadbare bowling attack, so evident at Cardiff two Sundays ago.

I just don't know where all this madness is going to end. At least Glamorgan have so far resisted any temptation to follow the rest. We did have the opportunity to sign Ali Bukhari (or Mohammad Ali as he became when he joined Derbyshire) a couple of seasons ago but I am thankful we did not. The day Glamorgan stoop to the crazily myopic shenanigans of the rest will indeed be a sad one. I hope I don't see it. Bona fide overseas players are a different case but otherwise let's concentrate on continuing to produce our own talent.