Rain keeps captain Smith waiting

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.