Steady rain all day threatened to cause an abandonment without the Australians even leaving their team hotel. They spent much of the day watching the Women’s Ashes Test at a sunnier Canterbury, before the coach Darren Lehmann and his opposite number David Ripley brokered a late start.
The plan was for a toss at 4.30pm and then 30 overs from 5pm, but the rain returned just as the Australian team bus turned into Wantage Road. So it was that a three-day fixture was trimmed back to two, coincidentally the same length of the match between these two sides in 2013. Steven Smith must wait one more day to toss a coin as Australia’s full-time captain.