Washout sees England play the waiting game for top spot

Birmingham suffered three washed-out days in the rain-ravaged third npower Test against West Indies last month, and yesterday bad weather prevented any play in the NatWest Series too.

Several times over, it seemed as if the third ODI might be about to get under way – albeit in a shortened format – only for rain to continually dash plans.

Finally, at 6.10pm umpires Aleem Dar and Rob Bailey announced an abandonment which leaves England 2-0 up with two to play.

They can no longer therefore complete the 5-0 series whitewash they need to depose Australia at No 1 in the International Cricket Council rankings, and become the first team to top the table in all three formats.

Warwickshire chief executive Colin Povey spelt out his frustration at another Edgbaston wash-out although the Midlands county will suffer no financial loss through being fully insured.

“You just want a good day out and the people we feel sorry for are the fans,” said Povey.

“We’ve worked hard and everyone has been busting a gut to get the match on.

“We’d geed ourselves up after the Test match and said ‘never mind, we’ve got the one-dayer coming up soon with a full house’ and then we get rained off again.

“It’s frustrating and it’s just sad to see people all ready to go and then we don’t see any cricket.”

With regard to any economic implications, Povey added: “In terms of finance, the wash-out does not really impact on us financially.

“Today we had pretty full cover on insurance so we had covered tickets and retail for this match because it is a big game for us, a big money-spinner.

“But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter whether you’ve made your budget or not in a financial sense.

“You want to see England stuffing Australia and you want to see the stand rocking and people having a great time.”

England will now attempt to clinch the series – weather permitting of course – on Saturday in the fourth encounter between the two sides at Durham.

n England women are 2-0 down in their five-match one-day international series against India after slipping to a 14-run defeat at Taunton.

The hosts looked set for a certain victory when they reduced the tourists to 46-7 and 68-8, but a counter-attacking 42 not out from No 8 Amita Sharma and 22 from No 11 Guher Sultana saw them to 129 all out.

Katherine Brunt took 4-20 and Georgia Elwiss chipped in with 2-19.

England would have fancied their chances of chasing their target, but capitulated for 115 in 47.2 overs.

Opener Tammy Beaumont top-scored with 31 and Jenny Gunn made 20, but there were too many failures as Jhulan Goswami returned 4-17 to kick off the collapse.

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