Freak weather event wreaks havoc at Manuka Oval as clouds hover over BBL game

The combination of wind and rain blew the covers off the centre square in a freak weather event on Friday night, leaving the area waterlogged on Saturday morning.

Winds reached more than 55km/h in a storm that pounded the city and surrounding areas.

Power was cut to more than 18,000 homes and multiple trees were blown over, causing damage to houses, cars and power lines.

While there was initially optimism a delayed start could eventuate, these hopes were quickly abandoned and the match was called.

Leaf blowers had been placed on the pitch in an attempt to dry it out, however there were also concerns about the wider centre square and a separate wicket groundstaff had been preparing for Tuesday night's Big Bash match.

Prime Minister's XI opener Cameron Bancroft will line up for the Thunder on Tuesday and is confident there is enough time to prepare the pitch.

"It was already quite dry so a little bit of rain three days out probably isn't too much of a big deal," Bancroft said. "The square will dry assuming it stays quite warm and it should be ready to go for Tuesday."

The PM's XI clash was a tough grind for both batters and bowlers as Manuka Oval hosted its first match since major turf renovations were carried out.

The entire ground was ripped up and relaid in a process that started just 10 weeks before the annual tour match.

Players arrived in Canberra expecting the pitch to be relatively flat, however it proved even more challenging than anticipated.

The work on the turf and recent rain made life difficult for the groundstaff and led to a low and slow pitch, and incredibly slow outfield.

The rain consigned the match to a draw, with a result already unlikely before the weather got involved.

The Prime Minister's XI was set to resume the day at 4-367, trailing Pakistan's first innings total of 9-391dec by 24 runs.

PM's XI skipper Nathan McSweeney was disappointed the match didn't pan out as planned, with the pitch not helping generate a result.

"It was quite tough in the lead up," he said. "They had plenty of rain here so it wasn't their best prep. They said it was going to be really hot, it got hot in stages throughout the week but clouds came over and we didn't have the extreme heat for a long period of time to make the wicket break up.

"A combination of things didn't quite make the wicket deteriorate the way we thought so that's probably why it panned out the way it did."

Earlier in the day, there was optimism from some quarters of play on Saturday. The pitch, however was too wet and there were concerns about damaging the Big Bash wicket.

Umpire Donovan Koch told Fox Sports player safety was a priority in determining if play would resume.

"The pitch is wet, the surrounding [area] is wet and our main concern is actually the BBL pitch that's two strips down from the actual playing pitch where there's a game on Tuesday night," Koch said.

"We're going to take a cautious approach, we've got a Test team that we don't want to cause any injuries to the Test team and we've got a few BBL players in the [Prime Minister's XI] team as well."

Matt Renshaw had anchored the innings with an unbeaten 136 and said on Friday night the plan was to compile a lead before setting the tourists a target to chase late in the day. That, however, will not happen.

While the leaf blowers were helping, curators knew only the sun would save the day's play.

With temperatures forecast to reach 37 there was hope, however it was ultimately in vain as clouds continued to hover over the ground.

"We're hoping for sunshine, which we're not getting at the moment," Koch said earlier in the morning. "We want to see a change in conditions. We want to see if it's drying out or not. If it's not drying up, we're probably fighting a losing battle. Hopefully we get better sun and we can see a change of conditions and get them out there."