June 21, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 16, 1429

LONDON, June 20: Cricket officials have moved quickly to avoid another abandoned game in England’s One-day International series with New Zealand by amending the rules to allow for a shorter interval between innings.

The second of the five-match series was declared a no result on Wednesday at Edgbaston, Birmingham because of persistent rain.

The match had initially been reduced from 50 to 24-overs-a-side. When the players walked off, New Zealand had only needed to face one more over to have the match count.Many blamed the required 30-minute interval between the innings for the abandonment.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and New Zealand Cricket (NZC) asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) to allow umpires to be able to shorten the interval to prevent a similar situation happening again.

“The appropriate section of regulation 15.1 of the ICC regulations will be replaced with the following wording: ‘Where the innings of the side batting first is delayed or interrupted, the umpires will reduce the length of the interval,’” the ECB said.

The third match is at Bristol on Saturday, followed by The Oval on June 25 and Lord’s on June 28.—AP