Colly calls for rule change

Collingwood: Calling for rule review

I can understand them (the crowd) getting frustrated when it goes to the wire like that in the game and everyone looks around and wonders what we could have done better.

Paul Collingwood
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England captain Paul Collingwood has urged the International Cricket Council to review the rules and regulations of the NatWest Series after the second match at Edgbaston ended in a contentious wash-out.

Chasing a revised target of 160 to win in 23 overs under the Duckworth Lewis method, the tourists had reached 127-2 after 19 overs when umpires Steve Davis and Ian Gould ended play in heavy rain.

The rules and regulations stipulate 20 overs must be faced by each side to constitute a match, leaving New Zealand only seven runs short of the target they needed for victory provided they did not lose any more wickets.

The tourists' frustration was matched by that of the 16,000 crowd, who were mystified as to why the teams had to take a 30-minute interval between innings - knowing a shorter break could have meant a result.

Crowd sympathy

It is a system which Collingwood believes should be looked at.

"I can understand them (the crowd) getting frustrated when it goes to the wire like that in the game and everyone looks around and wonders what we could have done better," he said.

"The lunch break was half an hour, which is the rules and regulations and there's nothing we could do about it as players or as umpires, but I do believe it is something that has to be looked at because we could have gone out there in 10 or 15 minutes.

"We didn't have any lunch to have or anything like that, we'd had that before the match.

"From a players' point of view we were ready to go out there and it was a surprise to us that it was 30 minutes."