Kent's Twenty20 Cup quarter final against Warwickshire at Edgbaston will be played at 5pm on Thursday after Wednesday’s heavy rain left the Birmingham Test venue awash.

Persistent showers forced umpires Rob Bailey and Jeremy Lloyds with no alternative but to call the tie off at 3.45pm – almost two hours before the scheduled start time.

Warwickshire officials, who have sold 6,500 advance tickets for the game, then met with Kent chief executive Paul Millman and agreed the 5pm start with an hour’s leeway in the event of any more bad weather.

Mr Millman said: “We considered a morning start for Thursday, but we have to think about the Warwickshire fan base and, if I’m honest, to play a game of this magnitude to an empty stadium would have been naff.

“So, taking all parties into account, 5pm seemed the best compromise and we just now hope the weather holds up on Thursday so we can avoid a bowl off.”

Mr Millman also confirmed that the ECB have already granted Kent permission to delay the start of Friday’s LV Championship clash with Yorkshire at St Lawrence until noon.

The long-range forecast for Birmingham for Thursday is poor, with the potential for showers after 4pm, but both teams will be keen to avoid a repeat of their infamous bowl off here in 1994.

The two clubs, who are meeting for the first time in this event, are bidding to join Essex and Middlesex in finals day at the Rose Bowl in Southampton on Saturday July 26.