7.05pm: Match abandoned, that's it, shake your fist at the skies, we're done. The umpires and the groundsman have, probably quite sensibly, concluded that it there's not snowball's chance of getting the ground fixed up, if and when the rain does eventually stop, and have sent everyone home. Thanks for keeping us company as we mugged our way through the last three-and-a-half hours or so - we'll be back for more rain delays and fantasy cricket from Cardiff on Saturday. B-bye now!

7.04pm: Hello, me again. The umpires (all three of them) have perambulated out to the middle, umbrellas up, rain still falling...

6.40pm: Still it mizzles in the Midlands, the umpires have had a little look but, realistically, they can't start to think about a restart until the rain disappears. Speaking of which, I'm going to buzz off and get me tea ... Gnasher or I will be back with the latest in a bit.

6.30pm: BREAKING NEWS, from Julian Cook: "Hi, I use the paid service on the radar and unfortunately there is some more behind. Sorry folks!" Well, ain't that a stinker. *Looks at watch, thinks about dinner*

"Everyone's busy with British weather and game stuff, no one bothered to mention that one of legend of cricket Mathew Hoggard retired from international cricket," chides Wasiyullah. "Hoggy will be remembered for '05 brilliance but his ability to swing the ball in India should be recalled with equal fondness. Legend!" I think we referred to it earlier, Wasiyullah, but here's the link again. We've even got Alex Winter chatting about Hoggy, if you can understand his west country burr.

And here's Sven Holcombe, with more youthful japes: "Equipment: 1x Signature bat, 1x table tennis ball, 1x bucket, 1x brother. Rules: Bucket in middle of room, both players on knees, bowler bowls by chucking from a hand-on-neck starting position, any-wall-on-the-full is six, wall-on-the-bounce is four, couch-on-the-full is out, bowler bowls from where the ball stops. Result: Hours of fun, game ends when Mum starts yelling"

6.20pm: It's still raining in Edgbaston, confirms George Dobell, with theories ranging from an hour to 90 minutes to get the covers off, should it stop. Then we will need Duckworth-Lewis ... which, going by some of your feedback, I think we'll have to leave with the experts.

"Target would be 146 if England managed 100 in their 20 overs," declares Simon James, confidently.

Yasin is a bit more specific: "If Eng made 100/5 in 20 overs then target is 104, if they loss 3 wickets then its 145. If they lose 4 wkt, then it's 127."

While Darshak Shah comes up with something completely different: "If England manage 100 for 3 in 20 overs then Australia would have target between 115-120 to win..."

6.15pm: Looking at the radar, the majority of the rain appears to have passed Birmingham now. So, if it all clears in the next half an hour or so, we may still squeeze in that T20.

6.10pm: Some marvellous memories from Mike Walton: "The cricket game on a cloth - which I was given back in the forties - was called Balyna (2 'l's maybe? 'i' not 'y'???). The bat was a heavy metal disk hooked on to a pulley system. There were rings round the pitch to indicate the runs scored. Metal ball. Once you'd got the timing right you could get a very high score! If you hit it hard enough, you could even bully a plastic fielder out of the way! (Not like my real life experience at all!!!) I played this game for hours when it was raining outside! Wish I'd still got it today! I was given an "Owzat!" set a only year or two back by my thoughtful young daughter. So it's still around. At school, back in the fifties, we also refined the pencil game, so that it was more realistic. We needed two pencils. This enabled us to have some balls from which no run was scored - and to indicate how exactly a player was dismissed. Not so many sixes, etc. We also had a game we played by allocating values and wickets to all the letters of the alphabet. Including dots. Rare letters used for rare events (eg. hit wkt). We would then open a book at a random page, and play out a match by using the text to activate the scoreboard. If a teacher came in the room, rain stopped play. (It looks as if the whole staff have come in at Edgbaston!!!)"

6pm: Let's just assume it's still raining. "If England finish 100 runs in 20 overs then what will be revised target for Aussie in 20 overs?" asks Sid. The short answer is, I don't know. The long answer is, I don't, er, have the Duckworth-Lewis calculation to hand right now. But I'm sure someone out there could give us a ballpark figure...

"In our school days we used to play 'phone cricket'," declares Srivatsan, with the latest variant on conjuring up cricket matches from any old numbers you can find laying around. "Bowler should write an alphabet from A to F in a notebook and cover it. Then the batsmen is allowed to tell any number between 1 to 6. If the bowler's alphabet matches with batsman's number then batsmen is OUT,for eg A=1,B=2,D=4,F=6. Else if the bowler's alphabet does not match with batsman's number then the number is awarded to batsman., eg A=5, B=6 then 5 and 6 runs are awarded to the batsman. This is played until batsmen gets out and numbers are added to get the highest score. It was fun and my highest was 178." Er, you lost me along the way there. And when does the phone come in?

Here's Jude Burcombe: "My friends and I used to play marble cricket in one of our bedrooms in the 1980s. The bat was half a wooden clothes peg, with favourite bat logo drawn on in pen, held between thumb and forefinger, with a homemade cardboard pad worn on the thumb. The bowler could bowl anything with a small marble, over or under, leg or off breaks. Fielders were other marbles and we used a full score book, playing entire tests on wet afternoons. Great fun."

5.45pm: It's still raining (as far as I know, though I'm in London, not Birmingham. Let's just assume it is. Someone will tweet if it isn't). Here's Anurag: "Whenever Australia seem to win, the rain comes to save England! By the way how much time will it take to clear up? It must take less than an hour if play has to resume (assuming rain stops at 19.30)." I believe the groundsman is saying 40 minutes to get the covers off - once it has stopped - but that isn't quite the same thing as the ground being dry enough to play. Going to be very touch and go, I fear.

"Just when I thought I'd forgot being bowled out for 20, you bring it back up. Thanks." Apologies, Seb, you can blame Gnasher for that. At least you don't have to sit next to him (and he's a Lancs fan).

"I accidentally stepped on a table tennis ball and dented one side without crushing the whole thing," says Christian, taking a deep breath. "So, I placed a piece of carpet on the floor and folded a draughts board in half so it could stand on edge as the wicket. I bowled over-arm and my lopsided table tennis ball produced prodigious swing to dismiss Ian, Greg, Allan, Graham and Kim. The best ball ever pitched outside off, cut in towards the stumps, then swung away to take the edge to Murray. That might have been Sunny out."

5.25pm: No, in fact I won Division One of the Championship on normal. Which, as I'm sure you all know, was actually pretty hard. But anyway, that was weeks years ago... The latest from our man at Edgbaston, George Dobell, is that even ducks wouldn't risk it out in the middle right now.

"Surely someone else must have played car cricket...?" says Nick McGeorge. "A sure fire winner (?!) on long trips... looking at the cars you pass, different colour cars equal runs e.g. silver = 1, black = 2, red = 3, green = 4 and yellow = 6, any foreign vehicle = wicket... Simple and hours of fun..." I think we had someone on here suggesting a similar game a few weeks ago, Nick, though it involved a lot more reckless overtaking.

5.15pm Hope you've enjoyed the chat folks. I've really enjoyed hearing some of your stories. Keep them coming. I'm handing over to Alan who, when playing as Essex in Cricket Captain, didn't get bowled out for 20 like they did in real life this season.

5.10pm This game has to be finished by 10.15pm, so counting backwards (England need to bat 4.5 more overs and Australia have a 20-over chase as minimum) I'd say we need about two more hours of cricket. All speculation on my part, to fill time. Ah, just been tweeted by the Test Match Special crew: need to be starting by 8.30pm to get a game in.

Here's Kris "We played a homemade game (at least I think it was) whereby each player would choose any player they wanted, so you'd have Spofforth, Bradman and Lillee in the same team. It took a while to set up but that was part of the fun. On a sheet of paper you'd draw a small pitch and place your fielders. The batting side would put numbers at random on the paper to indicate runs scored. Ways of being out were also written. The batsman would be named and you'd put the point of a long pencil at the crease and somehow flick from the top. If the direction of the pencil line went in a direct line to a fielder you were caught, same for runs scored and being out other ways. Bit involved but you could play it anywhere and we wasted hours of classroom instruction on it! We kept a scorecard and played two innings."

5.05pm Mark Kidger: "The BBC are suggesting that the rain will stop around 1930, with the cut off time at 2020. This would reduce the match to around 20 overs a side. Not great news for England who have batted 15 overs already." May be too late by then, anyway, given the clearing up time needed

Phil: "@ Daniel Moroney: Test Match Cricket...thank you! Was trying to go back in time to remember what this was called. This was available in England. I remember playing this with my brother in the 80's. Back to back Ashes series are nothing...we had about 3 years worth of West Indies vs. England. Jeffrey Dujon won man of the series as I remember!"

Dave: "Did no one play rubber cricket?? You know, mark all 6 sides of a rubber with 4,6,1,2,3 and OUT and flip it for each batsman. Add up the totals after both innings and the highest score wins! Think my highest score was around 400 once!"

4.55pm Alex: "Midnight here in Perth, should I stay up or go to bed? How likely is there to be any play in the next hour?" In the next hour...not much chance at all.

Howard: "As kids in Jamaica, we used to pick up 11 random bottle caps with numbers stamped on the inside, added them up as the scores of your 11 batsmen and the person with the highest number had the wining team ... repeat as often as you wish."

Bhagyesh: "We used to play cloth cricket .. essentially the pitch was made up of cloth with fielding positions, pitch and 30 yard circle marked on it .. we had a small plastic bat attached to the wicket keeper like a crane and the bowler was a slide on while you put the small silver bullet .. plastic fielder figures .. the cloth (pitch) had to be ironed and there was boundary fence too .. We also had score sheets .. we played test matches on it .. was extreme fun"

4.50pm rohit: "talking about games, how come no one has said anything about book cricket? every school going kid has played it while the teacher is giving lecture" It has just been mentioned by Jebran as well. We at Cricinfo do not condone not concentrating in class, I should add.

Daniel Moroney: "My favourite cricket game that has yet to be mentioned has to be Test Match Cricket. Not sure if this is an Australian only game but it was pure brilliance, The bowler had a little cup that would fit a ball bearing, you pushed his arm to roll it down a chute to the waiting batsman that the other player controlled with a trigger who would try and place the ball bearing in between the 9 plastic fielder figurines to avoid being caught. Ohhhh the happy childhood memories are flooding back!"

Gocfe: "Didn't have the hexagonal dice for the score but used a hexagonal pencil instead. It used to drive our teacher at school insane all us kids rolling pencils across our desks instead of copying notes from the board...." Wasn't much school work getting done by the sounds of it

Keith Johnson: "I can't believe that no-one has mentioned Subbuteo cricket. A proper game!"

4.40pm Dan: "In the early 80's in Australia I had a dice cricket game called Max Walker's cricket. Eventually as the teams it supplied became outdated I used to make up my own, give them ratings and play the greatest Australian teams against each other. This is what we were forced into before cricinfo." Don't let us stop you.

Stephen Jepson: "My cricket game of choice was Owzat! (Note the exclamation). Two hexagonal dice, one with 1,2,3,4,6 & Owzat! the other with Bowled, Caught, Run Out, LBW, No Ball & Not Out on. Add a junior score book and you have one nerdy existence." Think I owned that game, too...

StoneRose: "Remember the cheesy advert featuring the ex-England captain: "MIKE ATHERTON'S WORLD CUP CRICKET...EVEN BETTER THAN T'REAL THING!"" Well, Atherton's World Cup record as captain wasn't great

4.35pm Phil Hayler: "This is all too modern for me - i still believe Flippin' Cricket to be the greatest cricket game made. It was essentially tiddliwinks on a mat with big areas for scoring singles or you could risk aiming for 4s and 6s which were nearer the wicket lost areas. I think it was discontinued in the 60s!"

Waqas Ahmed: "As everyone talking about games. Anyone like International Cricket Captain? I could not found in Pakistan except me :)" Yep, all of us on the desk have played that too!

Stuart: "Super International Cricket is still the best ever on SNES. You could appeal for anything...and sometimes it would be given. Or International Cricket Captain on the PC. All the fun of cricket without the controls..."

Nick Gerovasilis: "EA Cricket 2002 had a particularly unfortunate glitch where the ball would go past the stumps before taking a U-turn and bowling you. Suffices to say you wouldn't be happy when you saw the side-on replay."

Weather update It's very wet, and will be for some time to come.

4.25pm Mark P: "Who needs video games? Surely just video them playing a game of HOWZAT? All that dice rolling excitement..." Another classic.

Allan: "There was one (i think maybe an EA game) where the field for a test match was set with nobody in the outfield until the batter reached 30 odd. So you played yourself in for a couple of overs and the slogged everything after that. Clearly the game's developer was a fan of Virender Sehwag."

Kieran : "Wasn't that game the one where Craig White would regularly whip it down at 100+mph?" Surely that was just real life!

faisal: "I played in a Brian Lara 97 PS1 tournament in Pakistan. Epic game! They rigged it up to a projector so huge screen. Just about to win the final but the electricity went off:("

Back to real cricket for a moment: Ed Bowden: "Why do England bother with ODIs? They never have been and never will be a decent one day side. Blame it on English conditions, the prevalence of test cricket or the county system, but we just never score enough runs to be regularly competitive." Never a decent one-day side? Didn't they reach a global final a few months ago. Were No. 1 not so long ago. Fantastic home record over last few years, plus series wins in UAE, SA, NZ to name a few. Not too shabby, really.

4.15pm Nick Travers: "Wasn't that the game where to had to press a button to NOT run? Pretty sure England would defend this score pretty comfortably on that game." Can't quite remember that, but I do remember it took me a while to work out how not to be bowled by any straight delivery.

shailesh: "Cricket97 was epic..all manual controls"

Hasan Aziz: "Re: Brian Lara Cricket mine had a glitch too, didn't they all? One particular annoying one was... "Waqar younis steaming in... great shot, and Four, and out "" That sounds like some of the commentary you here on TV!

"I always liked being Sri Lanka," says Alan sat next to be as he reminisces of his Brian Lara Cricket moments, "but got all the wickets as Upul Chandana and not Murali."

Sha: "Speaking of Cricket games, there's a hidden pearl on the SNES called "Super International Cricket"... basic but the mechanics and techniques look better than the loopy six-a-thons created on 3D Game engines."

Matt: "Still play Brian Lara at our club when have a rain delay. Played at weekend - didn't help when we were all out for 69."

4.05pm Faisal: "Why don't the two teams decide the run affected match by playing Brian Lara 1999 on the Playstation and showing it on the big screen and on tv? It seems a fair way to decide the match." Ah, good memories of Brian Lara Cricket. What a game that was. Wasted many hours of my youth. Think my version had a glitch, though, where you would hit the ball into the air and it would get stuck...think I ran a 25 once!

3.50pm It's Gnasher back with you while the rain falls (well, hopefully when it stops, too, but that doesn't look likely soon). It's a bit of a miserable scene, as the English international season dribbles to a conclusion but there has been plenty of action in the County Championship today.

Mahesh: "Not sure - Alan Gardner if you are from England, sorry to say the weather in England is horrendous and not suitable for cricket at all.. Not sure if this would get posted, fingers crossed... :)" Well, Alan is taking a break. I'd suggest that is somewhat of an over-reaction. It's been a good summer in the UK. September is autumn. It will sometimes rain. Birmingham unlucky to get it again.

3.45pm The covers are firmly on, people huddling under umbrellas or heading off to the pasty stands. Nothing to see here (at least not for a little while).

3.35pm Ugh, not for the first time, I've served myself size 11 pie for dinner. The rain has turned authentic, fat little droplets falling and the players are going off, the umpires having had enough. The rain radar isn't all that encouraging, I'm sorry to say, ladies and gentlemen.

Anyway, while you work yourselves into an impotent fury about the English summer before realising that there are more important things in life, like reading good books and getting the washing up done wait for further updates, here's something to distract you: our espn.co.uk cousins have a competition for you to win one of David Gower's autobiographies and a Slazenger bat, both of which have been signed by the eloquent champion. Enter here.

They're not going to be interrupted yet, however - Voges continues

Time for some drinks. We do need 20 overs per side for a game, so that is probably behind Clarke's thinking

Clarke knocks out Morgan's leg stump ... but he had already pulled away and Dar signals dead ball

Left-arm something-or-other at both ends, as Clarke brings himself on now

Maybe the Voges ploy was to try and get through some quick overs, with the threat of rain, but working the ball around without any pace will likely be tough, if this Edgbaston pitch is like others of recent times

Interesting - Clarke now throws the ball to Adam Voges

"I don't know why people are surprised about MJ's bowling," says Matt. "He's been one of the best one day bowlers in the world for ages now. Same way he's been a very spotty test match character for ages now."

Gough and Dar exchanging a couple of looks. Bit of drizzle/mizzle/weather around