Playing time (cricket)

Games in the sport of cricket are played over a number of hours or days, making it one of the sports with the longest playing time, though sailing, yachting, road cycling, and rallying are sometimes longer.

Apart from some experimental One Day International series in Australia's roofed Marvel Stadium, cricket is played outdoors.

These requirements mean that in England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Zimbabwe the game is played in the summer.

In the West Indies, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh games are played in the winter.

Games start earlier in these places than in the countries which play cricket as a summer sport.

However, if nine wickets are down when the agreed time for lunch or tea is reached (so that the bowling team only needs one more wicket to end the batting team's innings), that interval may be delayed until the end of the innings, with a maximum delay of 30 minutes.

Drinks intervals are agreed at the start of each day, but are not taken during the last hour of the match.

In international limited-overs cricket, there is a time limit of 60 seconds between overs, and a 5-run penalty is awarded to the batting team if the fielding team fails to begin bowling the next over by the end of the 60 seconds.

By the evening of 14 March England were 316 & 654–5 chasing South Africa's 530 & 481, needing just 42 more runs for victory.

However, England needed to leave Durban the following day to catch their boat home, so, despite being a 'timeless' Test, a draw was agreed.