The Ashes LIVE: Result and reaction from England vs Australia as Stuart Broad enjoys fairytale retirement

Hang on - the precipitation may have stopped. A few members of the groundstaff are making their way out to inspect the covers.

Still the rain falls. We don’t know have official clarity yet on when we can play until tonight - it may depend on what time cricket resumes.

We have now started losing overs, with the covers still very much on.

England have been left frustrated once again by the weather as rain impacts the fifth Ashes Test at the Kia Oval.

David Warner and Usman Khawaja batted magnificently to guide the tourists to 140 for the first wicket. And Australia were given a boost before lunch on day five when Ben Stokes dropped Steve Smith due to a premature celebration.

Australia are chasing 384 to secure a 3-1 series win, while rain interrupted play once again after lunch in a dramatic Test that has seen Stuart Broad confirm he will retire from cricket at the end of the Test.

It’s coming down pretty steadily at the Oval, but not with the sort of intensity that ended any prospect of play yesterday. The indications are that this may continue until around four, but the evening forecast is more promising.

While we wait for the rain to relent, a bit more on the ball change that worked to England’s benefit, with an old, soft ball swapped for what looked a considerably newer, harder Dukes after it had been damaged by Usman Khawaja’s helmet yesterday afternoon. Having found little through the air or off the pitch yesterday, England’s bowlers produced a much more testing spell of swing and seam this morning - and Ricky Ponting believes Joel Wilson and Kumar Dharmasena made an error when retrieving a replacement from the box of spares yesterday.

“There’s, there’s no way in the world you can even look at those two balls there and say in any way they are comparable,” said Ponting on Sky Sports at lunch. “At the end of the day, if you are gonna change the ball, you want to make sure you get it as close as you possibly can to the one that you’re changing it from.

“Now if you have a look in that box, there weren’t too many older condition balls in there. But if you have a look at that, there were some older ones that were picked up. The umpires looked at them and threw them back. I just cannot fathom how two international umpires that have done that a lot of times can actually get that so wrong.

“That is a huge moment in this game, potentially a huge moment in the Test match and something that I think actually has to be investigated, whether there was the right condition balls in the box or the umpires have just blaze, picked one out of there that they thought would be ok to use. But there’s a perfect storm with it as well… Double the amount of movement this morning from yesterday afternoon, seam movement and swing. I think it’s a huge blunder that, as I said, needs to be investigated.”

Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root, two hardy Yorkshire types, stay out there with the fourth umpire for a while, but make their way back to the dressing rooms. The covers are on.

Ah. There’s not even time for one ball before the spits and spots start to tumble again. Off they go...

And here come the players, too, ready to resume. Steve Smith can’t remember where he left his gloves, but eventually finds them beneath a seat by the boundary.