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Local conventions  Local conventions, sometimes known as local rules, apply when the letter of the Laws has been adjusted by clubs to take account of particular local conditions. These arrangements are often related to the boundary Before the match begins, the umpires should satisfy themselves about whether there are any local conventions and what those conventions are. They should then ensure that all the players are made aware of them before play starts - to forestall any later confusion or misunderstandings! As a typical example such a local convention, one club in Surrey, England has a section of its boundary that runs very close to the back gardens of a line of neighbouring houses. To dissuade strikers from hitting boundary 6s into those gardens and startling the residents (or breaking their windows!), the club took two actions. Firstly it erected a very high chain link fence just outside the boundary and, secondly, it introduced a local convention that any boundary 6 hit into that area would only count as 4 runs All kinds of curious local conventions exist. Clubs near airports have been known to introduce them to suspend play while aircraft are taking off, otherwise the players can't hear the click of a ball hitting the edge of the bat before being caught. Some clubs have an ancient tree growing inside the playing area, so have devised local conventions to determine how many runs are scored if the ball hits the tree, and so on | ||||||