The hours of play and the intervals in a match have to be decided before the toss or as laid down in the tournament / series rules. Even the length of the intervals has to be fixed.
 

For all national/Test level matches, the length of the lunch interval is 40 minutes. The tea interval is 20 minutes long. The lunch interval is 45 minutes long in one-day matches, and there is of course no tea interval. But there was a time, not very long ago, when one-day games played in England used to have a tea-break. All the matches in the first three editions of the World Cup in 1975, 1979 and 1983 had a tea interval of 20 minutes' duration at the halfway mark in the second innings. Lunch in these games was taken at the halfway mark in the first innings, which meant that the team batting first would resume its innings after the lunch break! But in those days, the matches were 60-overs-a-side affairs. That is no more the case, and nowadays, one-day matches at the highest level are generally 50-overs-a-side affairs all over the world, unless there is a problem with the weather.

If the team batting first in a one-day game is bowled out atleast 30 minutes before the scheduled lunch interval, then there is an interval of ten minutes for the innings changeover and the second innings begins. Lunch is taken at the stipulated time. The opening batsmen of the team batting second do not relish such a situation, as they have to come out and bat for a handful of overs, return to the pavilion for the lunch-break and then begin their innings all over again after the interval.

Sunil Gavaskar once successfully 'saved' Ravi Shastri and K. Srikkanth, his openers, from the ordeal of batting for a brief period in between the two intervals, in the final of the World Championship of Cricket against Pakistan at Melbourne in March 1985. It was two minutes to 5 o' clock when the ninth Pakistani wicket fell. If the tenth fell before 5 pm, the Indians would have had to begin their innings at 5:10 pm and bat till the designated supper break at 5:30 pm. Gavaskar stunned Shastri, who was bowling well, by asking him to take a break and summoned Chetan Sharma, who was fielding in the deep, a fair distance away, for a bowl. So far was Sharma from him that he had to shout and gesticulate more than once to catch his attention. Gavaskar wasn't offended with his young bowler, for his inattentiveness had enabled him to lose some time. As Sharma took the ball and marked out his run-up, Gavaskar took his own time in setting the field with one eye on the ground-clock. By the time had had finished rearranging the field, Sharma was ready at the top of his run-up. Gavaskar looked up at the clock and realized that it had already struck five. So he asked Sharma to stop, 'banished' him back into the deep, and recalled Shastri to the attack!

At the end of that over, Tony Crafter, one of the umpires, came over to Gavaskar and complimented him on a 'flawless performance'!

- By Piloo Reporter