Afghanistan-New Zealand Test ends without the toss

Afghanistan’s one-off Test against New Zealand became just the eighth match in the format’s history to be abandoned without a ball being bowled after rain washed out the fifth and final day in India’s Greater Noida region on Friday.The first ever Test scheduled between the sides looked doomed from the start due to steady rain for more than two weeks in the region.It was also the first Test to be scheduled at the Shahid Vijay Singh Pathik Sport Complex near Delhi.Afghanistan play their home matches abroad due to security concerns for touring teams.The Afghan board preferred Greater Noida over two other venues in India because of its proximity to Delhi, which made travelling from Kabul easier."We’re disappointed. We’d geared ourselves up, and we’d trained really well,” Afghanistan coach Jonathan Trott told reporters. "What I hope it is a good learning case that things can crop up... everything has got to be checked out and made sure that it’s ready for Test-match cricket."I think the ground staff have worked, obviously, very hard here. It just unfortunately hasn’t materialised, and we’ve had a freakish amount of rain for this time of year.”New Zealand coach Gary Stead was frustrated after they were denied an opportunity to get used to the sub-continent’s conditions ahead of a busy schedule that includes five more tests in Asia in the next two months."The most disappointing part for us is that we lost the opportunity to be match-hardened and match-ready when we go into our Test match (against Sri Lanka) next week,” Stead said at the post-match press conference."The guys are really disappointed. It was an opportunity to play Afghanistan. It doesn’t come around that often."They have some unique bowlers – it’s always good to get your head around how you face them. The way they play is a little bit different to other countries. It’s always learning what you can do when you get in those match situations"The guys are really disappointed. It was an opportunity to play Afghanistan. It doesn’t come around that often.”"Even though it was fine for those two days, there were thunderstorms the nights before and the ground was just too soft and the umpires deemed that unfit to play on,” he said. "So that is sort of out of the players’ hands in a way as well."But we were frustrated. We have come here to play cricket and play a Test match and as Jonathan (Trott, Afghanistan head coach) said, Test cricket, certainly to our group of players that is here, that’s very, very dear to their hearts and every Test you get to play in is a big one."So regardless of whether it has World Test Championship points or not, that opportunity to get out there for five days, it looked a great surface. The whole block looked fantastic, so it would have been a great match of Test cricket.”New Zealand will fly to Sri Lanka today for a two-Test series in Galle from Sept. 18."We’ve been there (in Sri Lanka) once in the past, and we are desperate to get there again. So every test match we play will be an important one."The conditions that we face in Galle will be, I’m sure, different to Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai when we come back here again. So it’s still about adapting to the different surfaces where I’m learning from those."But also banking the knowledge you have created in the past even though it’s been a couple of [sessions of] trainings out there, we’d still bank on what we’ve learnt on those sort of pitches,” Stead said.