England Test countdown hampered by Queenstown's rain

One day down and five to go.

That's the time left for England to assemble their Test players so that they go into the first Test in Christchurch in 10 days time in the best possible condition.

But time could be fast running out if yesterday at Queenstown is anything to go by.

Otago humbled the England top order which at one stage was reeling at 69/6. By the time play was abandoned for the day, initially for bad light but later due to heavy rain, England had worked their way to 82/6.

The Otago bowlers are a useful, but not brilliant, combination. However, England managed to make them look like world-beaters.

Craig Pryor had three for 29 from eight overs while left-arm seamer David Sewell had two for nine from seven overs.

Mark Butcher looked to be building into a reasonable innings when, on 20, he was trapped leg before wicket by Pryor off the last ball of his first over.

His opening partner Marcus Trescothick continued to struggle for his best touch and was unable to shake the malaise that afflicted him during the one-day series and he was caught at first slip by Pryor from Sewell's bowling. His six runs took 32 balls to compile.

After coming back from the first rain break 12 runs were added before Graham Thorpe, having unleashed two lovely cover drives for boundaries, edged a sharp catch which was well taken by Brendon McCullum just above his head at second slip.

Mark Ramprakash struggled as hard as anyone to get going, but after 27 balls of trying he departed for one run, bowled by Pryor.

By that stage, England had lost four wickets for 19 runs, and the situation got no better when Usman Afzaal got a terrific ball which left him unable to avoid edging to wicket-keeper Duncan Drew to complete three wickets lost in the space of 10 balls.

England were 55/5. Andrew Flintoff responded in the way he knows best by finding vacant space in the third man region and one glorious on drive, the shot of this shortened day, to the boundary from Sewell's bowling. But he too paid the price for batting at one-day pace instead of building an innings and edged a ball from James McMillan to Drew to end his 20-ball innings on 16.

England were 69/6 and when play ended seven balls after the tea break, due to bad light which was soon followed by heavy rain, Craig White and Warren Hegg had taken the score through to 82/6.

Butcher said afterwards that the grassiness of the pitch had made life difficult for the batsmen after Otago had agreed that England should bat first at the toss.

"There's more grass on that than I've seen anywhere for a long time, let alone England in April.

"The groundsman was a bit worried the pitch wouldn't last three days, but it would last 17 the way it is at the moment," he said.

The grassiness also meant the ball held its shine for long and consequently moved around a lot more.

"I don't think I faced a single ball that swung the whole time I was in India, so that was as big a contrast as you could get," he said.

Time was counting down for England's batsmen especially before the first Test.

"You want to spend as much time in the middle as you can. We've struggled to do that with six wickets down.

"The best we can hope for now is the boys can get another bat somewhere here and the bowlers can get half a day for a workout, hopefully tomorrow.

"At the moment it doesn't look good, but you can only hope. I'm feeling pretty happy with my game and I'm feeling pretty good.

"The only thing you can do is try and stay mentally in the right frame of mind," he said.

Butcher has disappointing memories of the last New Zealand-England series in 1999 when New Zealand won 2-1. The side on tour was a different side to that which lost the series and it would be nice if the memories of the last series loss were not repeated this time around.

However, with the weather forecast predicting more rain over the next two days, England's best hope may be for fine weather throughout their game with Canterbury starting on Thursday in Christchurch.