England's T20 international against South Africa has been called off 24 hours in advance following heavy rain.

Authorities made the decision at the Chester-le-Street ground to call off England's only competitive Twenty20 game before their Stanford match in Antigua on November 1 after arriving at the ground to find the outfield saturated.

It means England will be without any practice in this format before they fly out to the West Indies to compete in the £10million game against a Stanford All Stars team.