SCORES of cricket fans suffered traffic chaos before the Rose Bowl's first England one-day international.

There was virtual gridlock around the ground early yesterday as a sell-out crowd of 16,000 flocked to see the likes of Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff in action.

Police described the situation as "horrendous" as traffic jammed at junction 7 and 8 of the M27 where cricket fans were trying to turn off for the ground or head for buses at Bursledon.

The park-and-ride facility from the Tesco superstore off junction eight worked well, but the motorway itself was barely moving just prior to the start.

The showpiece group match in the ICC Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka was eventually washed out after little more than two hours of play, with the game due to resume today at 10.15am. When play was called off, there were more problems as thousands of people poured out of the ground at the same time.

Councillor Steve Broomfield, who represents the West End constituency on Eastleigh Council, said: "Something has got to be done. It doesn't take rocket science to know that this would happen when there is only one entrance.

"It can't carry on. Local people are being penalised by living around the Rose Bowl."

He now wants to set up a consultation group to look at ways of easing the problem and minimising the impact for residents of Hedge End and West End when the Rose Bowl stages big matches.

Kerry Payne, chairman of the Telegraph Woods Residents Association, said: "People had parked on pavements, preventing pedestrians from walking on them. There were thousands of people waiting at bus stops and taking up the road. It was dangerous. At one point an emergency ambulance had great trouble trying to drive through Telegraph Hill."

Hampshire Cricket projects manager Geoff Cox said the cricket club had done everything they could to ease the early-morning congestion.

He said: "We are trying to educate people to use public transport. We have put on buses from the stations at Hedge End, Southampton Airport Parkway and the park-and-ride."

Mr Cox said that Hampshire were looking at extra park-and-ride sites, but was pleased with how park-and-ride worked yesterday after trebling the number of buses from the India/ Kenya match last Saturday.

The Rose Bowl's managing director, Nick Pike, said the transfer of match spectators to the stadium was a success.

He said: "At peak time it only took buses 25 minutes to make a loop from the park-and-ride scheme to the stadium, which we are pleased with. We know that the M27 was busy but we can't do anything about the motorway structure. This sort of traffic is what you'd expect at Wembley or anywhere else."

There will be no park-and-ride facilities for the conclusion of England's match with Sri Lanka today, although shuttle buses will be running from Southampton Airport Parkway railway station.