Australia will be hoping the weather forecast is off the mark with rain threatening to turn their highly anticipated women’s Test against India into a damp squib.
Over half the opening day’s play was lost on Thursday when the combination of a thunderstorm and persistent showers washed out most of the final two sessions on the Gold Coast.
The outlook isn’t much better for Friday with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting a 90 per cent chance of rain with up to 20mm predicted and even the chance of another thunderstorm.
It’s a grim situation given the limited opportunity for women’s cricketers to play the longest form of the game.
This match is Australia’s first Test since 2019 and since last playing India 15 years ago, they have only played eight times in their whites.
Australia captain Meg Lanning, playing just her fifth Test and first against a nation other than England, said it was important for the women’s game to find a way to ensure regular Test matches around the world.
“That would be ideal. The more we play, the better we’ll get technically and tactically as well,” Lanning said.
“We’ve got two Tests this summer, which is really exciting.
“There’s certainly things that are happening in that space.
“We sort of understand that the shorter format is what has driven the game forward, it’s just finding the right balance between how we can keep, I guess, the most traditional format of the game still a really important part of the women’s schedule.
“For the moment, we just work with what we’ve got.
“We love the opportunity to put the baggy green on and we’ve got that chance over the next couple of days hopefully to do as well as we can.”
If play does resume on Friday, India are 1-132 with left-handed opener Smriti Mandhana not out on 80.
Mandhana, too, was hopeful of more chances for her and her teammates to tackle the longer format of the game.
“With this multi-format series, I’m just loving it,” the 25-year-old said.
“We played one in England … it’s just so good to wear whites. To go into bat with a few slips and few gullies in and then you have to apply yourself differently. That really tests you as a player.
“We as a team would love to play as many Test matches as we can and I think multi-format is great for women’s cricket.”
© AAP
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