THE English Cricket Board have ordered Worcestershire to reschedule this week’s flood-hit four day LV County Championship game against Kent.

It will now be played at New Road on July 30, 31, Aug 1 and 3.

The match was abandoned without a ball bowled a day early on Tuesday, after the umpires ruled there would be no prospect of any play being possible after more rain.

In a statement the ECB said: "The decision that the ground would be fit for first class cricket was taken in good faith, but was highly optimistic.

The board blamed the situation on "exceptional circumstances" and made the ruling subject to their regulations concerning the re-arrangement of fixtures."

It added: "The board exercised their discretion in light of the floods and in the spirit of fair play to Kent when two potential alternative grounds (Kidderminster and Beckenham) had been available prior to the scheduled fixture.

"The fact that other venues were available, but the match had not been relocated had unfairly penalised Kent when there was good cause, one week before the fixture to believe New Road was probably unfit for the originally scheduled date."

The decision means that Kent will have to travel direct from their Pro 40 game against Derbyshire at Chesterfield the previous day, with one day’s break on August 2 as Worcestershire travel to Chelmsford for a televised 40 over game.

It leaves the county on the road for over a week following their Championship game against Yorkshire at Scarborough which starts on Wednesday, July 25.

New Road was under water a fortnight ago, and despite work by volunteers and groundstaff, chief executive Mark Newton was still confident the game would go ahead.

Kent’s chief executive Paul Millman and director of cricket Graham Ford were both unhappy at the conditions they witnessed when they arrived at the ground on Saturday.

Play was called off in mid-afternoon, and then another heavy shower caused another early decision on the following two days.