England and Australia saw the number of overs left on the final day of the 2023 Ashes slashed from 52 to 47 due to a miscalculation by the match officials.

Rain set in after lunch on the final day to dampen hopes of a grandstand finish, but cleared up later in the day to allow play to resume. An early tea break was taken during the delay, and when play did resume at 4.20pm, it came with an announcement that 52 overs would be bowled in the final session.

Even at a rate of 15 overs an hour, this would have taken play past 8pm, well past when is standard even when there has been a suspension. Shortly into the evening session, the onfield umpires informed both teams that there had been a miscalculation, with 47 overs, rather than 52 overs, to be bowled. This was attributed to not taking the tea break into account when calculating how many overs were left.

According to the ICC playing conditions, on the final day: “if play is suspended due to adverse weather or light or any other reason (other than normal intervals) for more than 1 hour on any day, the minimum number of overs shall be reduced by 1 over for each full 4 minutes of the aggregate playing time lost.”

The final Ashes Test is building to thrilling finish, with Australia losing three wickets early on day five and four wickets in four overs on the final evening, but with big partnerships inbetween taking them to within 70 runs of victory at the time of writing.

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