![Tough days: NSW and Australia wicketkeeper Brad Haddin at the SCG on Wednesday. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer Tough days: NSW and Australia wicketkeeper Brad Haddin at the SCG on Wednesday. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/ee34ab99-4599-43d1-a183-9e22289bb794.jpg/r0_0_729_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Australia's preparations for the first Test have taken a back seat to the injury that has left Phillip Hughes fighting for his life.
For the second consecutive day, Cricket Australia delayed confirmation of Michael Clarke's withdrawal from next week's series opener against India in respect for Hughes.
Nor has there been an announcement of who will take the injured captain's position in the batting order.
While Australian cricket has been through trying times in the past few years, their on-field travails have paled into insignificance compared to the events of this week.
The other two Sheffield Shield matches were abandoned before play on Wednesday after the NSW v South Australia match was called off on Tuesday afternoon.
In the coming days, the task for national coach Darren Lehmann will be to not only console his distraught players but somehow prepare them mentally and physically to play a Test match.
Four of the 12 named in the Test squad on Monday – David Warner, Shane Watson, Brad Haddin and Nathan Lyon – were on the field when Hughes was struck.
Although Hughes has not played a Test since July 2013, he was part of Australia's touring party for last month's series in the UAE against Pakistan and is close to many players.
Lehmann is no stranger to adversity; he was out with his former mentor David Hookes on the night he died in 2004. Lehmann had earlier in the day captained South Australia in what turned out to be the last game Hookes presided over as coach of Victoria.
Aside from the emotional pain his team must be feeling, Lehmann also has on-field issues, which must now seem trivial but will need addressing before the Test starts on Thursday week.
The national team is without a captain, while the man most likely to replace him, Haddin, was unable to fully test his injured shoulder due to the cancellation of this round of Shield matches.
The man believed to be next in line to lead, Steve Smith, is also under an injury cloud and was withdrawn from the NSW team that played South Australia.
This week was also considered vital for Ryan Harris' preparations. On the comeback trail after an eight-month layoff following knee surgery, the lion-hearted paceman had been aiming to build match fitness and conditioning by turning out for Queensland against Tasmania.
Those plans have now been scuttled, though he was able to bowl 13 overs.
"The thing I'm struggling with is all the aches and pains I haven't had to deal with for the past seven months," Harris wrote in a column for Fairfax last Sunday.
"I'm always searching for things, wondering if something's wrong. That's why I feel I need to play one more game before the Test series.
"My first two or three spells in the Shield game against NSW weren't bad, but the last couple I ran out of gas. I need to be bowling with good pace late in the day, so I'm pretty keen to get some more overs under my belt, which will probably help."
Hughes remained in a critical condition in Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital on Wednesday night.