India vs Cricket Australia XI: Weather hits test preparations as rain washes out day 1

India's preparations for the test series against Australia was hit by inclement weather as the first day of the only warm-up match was washed out by rain. Heavy torrential rain in Sydney did not allow a ball to be bowled at the SCG on Wednesday.

The rain was so heavy that Virat Kohli’s team did not even venture out of the hotel to make the trip to the SCG.

Storms battered the New South Wales coast on Wednesday morning, flooding streets, railway stations and homes as the extreme weather caused commuter chaos, grounded flights and left hundreds of homes without electricity.

Play was impossible at the Sydney Cricket Ground, where the tourists are scheduled to play a non-first class tour match against an understrength representative side featuring just one international, D'Arcy Short.

An extra day was added to this fixture with a CA XI after the BCCI requested Cricket Australia for more preparation ahead of the Test series.

The test series begins in Adelaide on December 6, with further matches in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney over the following month. 

Five members of India’s Test squad featured for India A in New Zealand this month – Ajinkya Rahane, Murali Vijay, Prithvi Shaw, Hanuma Vihari and Parthiv Patel. All five linked up with the main squad in Australia in Sydney last week. They have been practing in Sydney for the last five days. 

Other members of the squad - Cheteshwar Pujara, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami - landed from India on Sunday.