Decision to curtail play at Lord's 'a joke' - Hussain

The decision to abandon play an hour before scheduled at the end of the third day of England's second Test against Pakistan was called "a joke" by Nasser Hussain.

On a Saturday badly affected by persistent showers at Lord's, players left the field at 17:08 BST.

At that point, prospects of conditions improving sufficiently for play to resume seemed remote. However, rain cleared and the sky brightened.

The groundstaff partially removed the covers while officials deliberated. At 18:30, with up to an hour of playing time remaining and with the weather the best it had been all day, umpires Paul Reiffel and Allahuddien Parker abandoned proceedings.

The decision was greeted with booing by some of the sparse crowd that remained inside the ground.

"That's a joke, honestly a joke," former England captain Hussain said on Sky Sports.

"I earlier said how good the umpires have been. These fans have waited all afternoon for it to stop raining. It's now bright. There's blue sky in the distance. That is an unbelievable decision, it really is.

"In about five minutes' time it's going to be sunny here."

The weather stayed dry and the light remained good up to 19:30, the time at which play would have been scheduled to close.

The morning session had been washed out and only 24.5 overs of play were possible as the players dodged the showers, meaning spectators will receive a 50% refund on the price of their ticket.

If 30 overs had been completed, spectators would not have been entitled to any money back.

Still, the abandonment caused some fans to express their displeasure with messages to the BBC's live coverage of the Test.

"Sat in the Edrich Stand," wrote Joe at Lord's. "It hasn't rained for half an hour and it's as bright as it's been all day. Absolutely no justification for not playing right now. A real shame."

Rachel in Kingswinford added: "Ridiculous to call it off! They want fans supporting Test cricket and those spectators have stuck with it all day - another 30-45 mins of play would have been a better look (plus saving authorities money on refunds)!"

Another message from Paul in Northwich read: "This is a terrible advert for cricket. It's like the umpires are waiting for it to rain again. At least the spectators can get a refund."

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Play ended with England 177-7 in their second innings, 357 ahead and on course to win the match and series.

Batting conditions had been difficult all day and it would have been another challenging period for the home side had they been asked to return for a short time late in the evening.

"It would have been a tricky 40 minutes to go out there and bat," said Dan Lawrence, who made an unbeaten 50.

"It's nice to have a good sleep and think about how I'm going to play in the morning. I can imagine it will be with the same intent and trying to push the game forward.

"Forty minutes of batting at 6.45pm is never an ideal thing."

The situation at Lord's came on the same day Durham were denied the chance to chase a victory target of four against Gloucestershire because of bad light at the end of the third day of their County Championship match at Chester-le-Street.

It means the teams will return on Sunday for what could be as little as one ball of action.

Gloucestershire were dismissed for 250 in their second innings in the closing stages of Saturday, with visiting coach Mark Alleyne claiming the light was already too poor before his team were all out.

"I'm not sure where to start, really," said Alleyne. "I mean, 45 minutes before we lost the last wicket, it was too dark to play, which would have been consistent with all the other days that we played."

"We had probably 50 minutes of cricket there that we probably shouldn't have done."

The match could have been concluded had Gloucestershire chosen to bowl spin, only for the away side to refuse and push the game into a Sunday when rain is forecast.

"They asked if we would bowl our spinners to finish the game," added Alleyne. "Of course, we said no, we'll bowl our quick bowlers, in which case it became bad light, so we'll come back tomorrow."

Durham coach Ryan Campbell wrote on X: "Cricket sometimes doesn't help itself. Before everyone loads up on the poor old umpires, it's not their fault."

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