Australia taking lessons from Manuka Oval washout ahead of Twenty20 World Cup

That saw the side experiment with bowling lineups, batting orders and even fielding plans, but the biggest learning curve came in the wet on Friday night.

The Manuka Oval clash was a constantly moving feast of rain delays, over reductions and revised Duckworth-Lewis-Stern targets before it was ultimately abandoned.

Given La Nina has been declared and the country's big wet is likely to continue for the remainder of the summer, it's a situation that will come into play throughout the World Cup.

Australian captain Aaron Finch won the toss and chose to bowl on Friday and it's a strategy he's likely to utilise should rain return in the coming weeks.

"That's the reality of Twenty20 cricket," Finch said.

"As soon as there's some rain around you get a bit more bias towards batting second.

"It can be a little bit harder if you bat first when there's a bit of rain coming. You're not quite sure how hard to go.

"The trend of Twenty20 cricket over the last five years has been batting second, teams have been a bit more comfortable doing that. Like in all games, if you don't get early wickets, any team can chase down anything."

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Despite batting first, England were in pole position to complete a 3-0 series sweep before the clash was abandoned.

Having retained wickets in hand with the bat before Chris Woakes struck early with three quick scalps, the visitors swung the DLS equation in their favour.

So while disappointed not to claim a win, the fast bowler took plenty of positives out of Friday's clash.

"Generally sides want to bat second," Woakes said. "On good wickets, chasing down totals is generally an easier way to go about it. With sides batting really deep, you can almost chase any score.

"The fact we're winning games in this series bowling second is the big takeaway for us. It shows we can defend totals on good surfaces in challenging conditions when it generally favours the bat."

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