An absurd day's play reached a farcical conclusion when, at 7.20pm with the match only six balls away from a result, heavy rain began to fall and the teams were led from the field, leaving New Zealand's players aggrieved that they had been denied a possible victory that would have squared the NatWest Series.

Daniel Vettori, the New Zealand captain, accused England of “gamesmanship” and held the umpires responsible for failing to speed the game towards a result. A few more minutes would have brought about a result, but after several delays for rain, a funereal over-rate from England and an illogical 30-minute break between innings, dictated by ICC regulations, a verdict of no result was returned.

For a result to be achieved in a one-day international, each side have to have batted for at least 20 overs. New Zealand, chasing a Duckworth/Lewis target of 160 from 23 overs, had reached 127 for two after 19 overs when the rain started to fall. The official cut-off time of 7.30pm came ten minutes later and the game was duly abandoned. Twenty minutes later, the rain had passed, the clouds lifted and, three days before the longest day of the year, 16,000 people were trudging home in bright Birmingham daylight.

The crowd had been admirably patient, but they had plenty of cause for complaint. After the start had been delayed by 4¼ hours by rain, England batted for 24 overs, scoring 162. Despite these earlier delays, ICC regulations dictated that the interval between innings could not be shortened to under 30 minutes. When England then took the field, they took 83 minutes to bowl 19 overs. Vettori believes that the umpires, Steve Davis, the Australian, and Ian Gould, of England, should have acted to speed up the game.

“I think it's a game we could have won if we'd got through that twentieth over,” Vettori said. “England's over-rate was particularly slow. If we were in that situation, we'd probably have done the same thing, but you need the umpires to take control of the game. There was obviously a bit of gamesmanship going on. That's all part of the game, but there has to be constant monitoring of the over-rate and keeping it up to speed. There were a lot of stoppages and if that had been tidied up, we wouldn't have been in this situation.”

Paul Collingwood, the England captain, maintained that he had not been aware that England's over-rate had been unusually slow. “It wasn't a tactical thing,” he said. “We were chasing the ball quite a bit and I didn't realise it was that slow.”

One issue the captains were agreed on was the ICC regulation that required players to take a 30-minute break after just 1½ hours of play. “To have a 30-minute break was surprising,” Collingwood said. “We were ready to go out in ten or 15 minutes. I think the regulation needs to be looked at.”

Vettori believed that yesterday's events could force a change in the rules. “It'll one of those common-sense solutions that happens after a debacle like this,” he said.

Davis said the umpires' hands were tied. “That's the way the playing conditions are, they're specific on that matter,” he said.

All of which overshadowed a game that had been building towards an interesting climax. After Luke Wright had thumped his second one-day fifty from just 33 balls, Brendon McCullum had made an uncharacteristically restrained 60 not out from 51 balls. But the rain returned and he would not have the chance to lead his side to victory.

Edgbaston (New Zealand won toss): No result

England

I R Bell c Vettori b Mills 0

L J Wright c Styris b Elliott 52

K P Pietersen c Vettori b Mason 13

R S Bopara run out 10

*P D Collingwood c Flynn b Elliott 37

O A Shah lbw b Elliott 18

A D Mascarenhas c Hopkins b Southee 23

T R Ambrose c Taylor b Mills 1

G P Swann c Hopkins b Southee 1

S C J Broad run out 1

J M Anderson not out 0

Extras (b 1, lb 2, w 2, nb 1) 6

Total (24 overs) 162

Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-40, 3-77, 4-80, 5-126, 6-137, 7-147, 8-161, 9-161.

Bowling: Mills 5-1-24-2; Southee 5-0-35-2; Mason 2-0-24-1; Elliott 5-0-23-3; Vettori 5-0-27-0; Styris 2-0-26-0.

New Zealand

J M How c Shah b Broad 16

B B McCullum not out 60

L R P L Taylor c Wright b Collingwood 25

S B Styris not out 19

Extras (lb 4, w 3) 7

Total (2 wkts, 19 overs) 127

G D Elliott, D R Flynn, G J Hopkins, *D L Vettori, K D Mills, T G Southee and M J Mason did not bat.

Fall of wickets: 1-25, 2-79.

Bowling: Anderson 3-0-16-0; Broad 3-0-28-1; Collingwood 4-0-23-1; Wright 3-0-20-0; Swann 5-0-26-0; Mascarenhas 1-0-10-0.

Umpires: S J Davis (Australia) and I J Gould.

TV umpire: NJ Llong.

Match referee: J Srinath (India).

Reserve umpire: R A Kettleborough.

Series: First match: England won by 114 runs.

To come: Third: Saturday (Bristol). Fourth: June 25 (Brit Oval). Fifth: June 28 (Lord’s).