Player safety vs entertainment debate at SCG: Vaughan leads calls for change in 'mindset'

Michael Vaughan led calls for a change in "mindset" among match officials and administrators after the first day of the fifth Ashes Test in Sydney was cut short owing to a combination of bad light, rain showers and lightning protocols.

A crowd of 49,574 - the highest attendance for a Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground since 1975-76 - watched England make 211 for 3 in 45 overs before umpires Ahsan Raza and Chris Gaffaney took the players off the field of play 15 minutes before the scheduled tea interval.

Lightning strikes in the Sydney area and rain showers prompted a delay to the start of the final session, with play unable to resume until at least 30 minutes after the most recent lightning strikes in the local area.

Play was finally abandoned just after 5pm local time - half-an-hour before the scheduled close - despite the rain stopping, with groundstaff opting against a clean-up operation due to the proximity of further showers. The announcement was met by boos from the crowd, although another quick burst of rain followed shortly after.

"From what I've seen in terms of the rain, the light and the conditions in the last hour or so, I think we've probably sawn off the public, who have paid their money in the ground today by a couple of hours at least," Vaughan, the former England captain, said on BBC's Test Match Special. "Through our time watching Test match cricket, this is the one format that we keep talking about [how] we need to do something to make sure that we're protecting it.

"In T20 cricket, you play in this. Test cricket is the one format that we do everything we possibly can to get off the pitch. The other two formats, we do everything we possibly can to get on the pitch. I just don't understand why we don't have that same mindset in Test match cricket."

Jason Gillespie, the former Australia fast bowler, struck a similar tone, telling ABC Radio, "Our game shoots itself in the foot time and time and time again."

But Harry Brook, who top-scored for England on the day with 78 not out, said that he and Joe Root had no qualms about leaving the field for bad light and had not expected to return to the field after seeing the forecast.

"We could hardly see the ball when I was batting at the end," Brook said. "Me and Rooty just said to [the umpires], 'It's so dark out here'. The Aussie boys were saying, 'Are we going off?' so everybody was pretty much in the same boat. It was dark and then obviously we had that rain, so we were just sat around waiting for it to be called off, really.

"We kind of knew that it was going to rain today, and obviously we came off for bad light. At that point, we knew the rain was going to come."

Daniel Vettori, Australia's assistant coach, said that their players were briefly surprised that play had been abandoned before the later showers. "I think we were, and then it rained again, so we stopped those thoughts," Vettori said.

When asked if cricket could strike a better balance between player safety and entertaining huge crowds, Vettori said, "I would be careful there. As a former player, I dreamed of rain, so I got to be mindful that I don't change my tune too much.

"Look, I think when conditions are set fair and it feels like there's no competitive advantage for either team, it feels like you want to play as much cricket as you can, but we're also mindful of the rules and regulations, everything that goes into it, the planning, how hard it is to predict weather.

"So, look, it's a tough one. We just abide by the rules in those situations."

Play will start 30 minutes early at 10am local time on the second morning as a result of the early finish.