India’s white-ball tour of New Zealand began with the first T20I in Wellington being washed out without a toss and a ball being bowled.
Both sides were consigned indoors due to continuous rain. Barring a very short dry spell, it was wet throughout.
That was disappointing news for the fans attending the Sky Stadium, which was set to host its first men’s T20I match in 20 months.
Even while it was drizzling, on-field umpires Chris Brown and Wayne Knights seemed to be inspecting the outfield to gauge the earliest time a match could start once the rain stopped reported Cricinfo.com.
#TeamIndia and New Zealand team enjoy a game of footvolley as we wait for the rain to let up.#NZvIND pic.twitter.com/8yjyJ3fTGJ
— BCCI (@BCCI) November 18, 2022
However, that never happened, with the game called off at 8.52 pm local time, roughly 54 minutes before the cut-off time for a five-over shootout.
The T20I series moves to Mount Maunganui for the second match on Sunday, after which the teams will advance to Napier for the third T20I on Tuesday Hardik Pandya, for the T20I series with many senior players rested, is leading a young India squandered. New Zealand competes without Martin Guptill and Trent Boult, with both sides looking to move on from their semi-final defeats at the T20 World Cup in Australia.
