Canberra, Dec 19 (IANS): The Indian cricket team considered walking out Monday from their rain-affected second warm-up match here at the Manuka Oval.
The match, however, started late due to rain and India decided to bat after winning the toss. India are desperate for key players to get some much needed match practice under their belts ahead of Melbourne, particularly experienced fast bowler Zaheer Khan who is making his return from an ankle injury.
The Age reported that the Indian team panicked as rain threatened to spoil their final preparations before the four-Test series against Australia starting on Boxing Day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
The daily reported that Manuka Oval head curator Brad Van Dam was told by an Indian team official that coach Duncan Fletcher was seriously contemplating getting his team on the first plane out of Canberra and abandoning their scheduled three-day game against a Chairman's XI side.
Only after an urgent meeting with Van Dam, Fletcher was convinced that the three-day practice game won't be washed out by rain.
Van Dam said the situation had calmed by the time he talked with Fletcher, and the Indian coach was happy to trust the curator's judgement that rain would likely clear for Tuesday and Wednesday.
"A few people were just in panic stations ... obviously there was talk in the hotel or something. They looked at the wrong forecast and put one and one together and got three. (Fletcher) was good about it, he goes 'what's the weather? I said, 'weather is going to die down, the rain's going to clear and we'll get on," Van Dam was quoted as saying by The Age.
"Then he wanted to know what time we'd get on (with play delayed from the scheduled 11 a.m. AEDT start). I said, I don't know we'll have to check with the umpires and we all made the call for 1.40 p.m. (and that's when we got on). He was fine," he said.
The Chairman's XI had in their ranks incumbent Test players David Warner, Usman Khawaja and Phil Hughes, as well as Boxing Day aspirants Ed Cowan and Doug Bollinger.