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Familiar collapse leaves England in trouble

Another middle order batting collapse left England tottering at 183 for nine when bad light ended play early on the first day of the second Test against New Zealand at Lord's on Thursday.

After winning the toss, the home side reached 79 for one but slumped to 150-7 as only three men reached double figures in conditions that became more overcast as the day progressed.

Seamer Chris Cairns finished with 5-75 and Dion Nash bagged a superb 3-49 but New Zealand, who have not beaten England in their past 17 meetings stretching back to1986, were denied the chance to bowl them out as play was brought to a halt two hours before the scheduled close.

New England captain Nasser Hussain was not out 59 with Phil Tufnell not out nought.

England had started reasonably well after losing Mark Butcher for eight as Hussain and Alec Stewart rode their luck to get within sight of lunch.

Stewart had been under pressure going into the match but hit eight fours on the way to a 50 that also took him past 6,000 runs in Test cricket.

But Nash had him caught at slip just before the break in an impressive spell that swung the game the tourists' way.

Nash, an outstanding performer in New Zealand's last visit to the ground in 1994, bowled unchanged spell either side of lunch and also claimed the wickets of Mark Ramprakash and Aftab Habib.

Graham Thorpe was caught by Nathan Astle off Cairns for an unconvincing seven and in the next over Ramprakash was leg before for four to a Nash full toss.

Habib and Chris Read, both failures with the bat on their debuts at Edgbaston, again went cheaply.

Habib was bowled by Nash for six and Read made a duck, completely deceived by Cairns' slow full toss.

Cairns also accounted for Dean Headley and Alan Mullally after Andy Caddick, who offered brief resistance with 18, was run out.

Headley was playing because England unexpectedly had to omit pace bowler Alex Tudor, with a knee injury.

England's chairman of selectors David Graveney felt it had been the right decision to bat first despite the cloud cover.

"All the forecasts suggested it would clear up by lunchtime, which regrettably it didn't," he said.

"The ball swung, they bowled well and it was a disappointing day for us. I think that's only twice in 15 innings that we've got over 300. If we can just get beyond 200 now, we'll see where we go from there."

England won the first of the four Test series at Edgbaston.

UNI