I love cricket, if I could only watch and play one sport for the rest of my life it would be the fine game of cricket.

This week I have urgent news for other cricket fans, as shortly there could be a worldwide shortage of bats.

I know this because I read it online so it must be true; it’s the result of a combination of a European Union directive and the end of the world, a lethal combination in anyone’s book.

So to the facts: a EU committee has outlawed before export from India and Pakistan the chemical methyl bromide, which is an insecticide, used to treat bats. The reason it’s been banned is because it is said to damage the ozone layer.

Now I thought we’d seen the ozone layer off years ago but apparently it’s still there, hanging on like Kevin Webster to Coronation Street. New research that I just made up has revealed that every time Kevin Pietersen hits a four another polar bear falls off an iceberg.

100,000 bats are made in India and Pakistan every year and unless a solution to this problem is found the £10million-a-year industry could go bust.

This is not a problem for me as I’ve used the same bat for the last ten years but is a disaster for my son who couldn’t possibly start a new season without a fresh blade in his bag.

In the overall scheme of things I’m not sure that when the world eventually gives up the ghost it’ll be because of a job lot of Gray-Nicholls Nitro Blazes arriving from the sub-continent (other models are available).