OVERSEAS players will be allowed to appear in two of Devon’s three KO cup competitions this summer.

The Servicemaster Devon T20 KO Cup is a qualifying competition for the ECB’s national tournament. ECB banned overseas players from 2016 onwards, a decision that tricked down to the county qualifiers.

Now ECB have removed the restriction, overseas players can play in Devon’s tier one T20 cup.

Officials from the Devon Cricket League, which administer all three county county cups, have also lifted the overseas player exclusion in the Ivor Dewdney’s Corinthian Cup for clubs at levels three to six.

The ban remains in place for clubs in the new competition for teams operating at level seven and below.

The changes were announced at an extra ordinary meeting called on Friday night to confirm rule and regulation changes for the 2019 season.

A handful of registration, eligibility and transfer issues were left unresolved following the league’s annual meeting late last year.

League officials redrafted the changes and brought them back to clubs for approval.

The majority of issues were passed with minimal discussion or dissent.

The only proposal that had speakers on their feet in opposition was one changing the in-season transfer protocol.

The league wanted to put a 48-hour time limit on player transfers between clubs to speed up the process.

When clubs realised the process would be automatic via the DCL play-cricket website with no notification other than an on-line posting, there were objections.

A stumbling block to transfers is often unpaid subscriptions and match fees at a former club – and clubs represented felt the new protocol would allow players to slip away without settling their commitments.

Clubs felt it was impractical to check play-cricket every other day throughout the season, just in case a transfer request had been lodged.

North Devon chairman Mark Ansell led requests for the time limit to be capped at seven days. League chairman Nick Rogers agreed to take a suitable amendment from the floor and the seven-day rule was passed by 53 votes to none.