New captain Nasser Hussain was given a sample of the frustration which affected his England predecessors after his batsmen once again failed to master the conditions at Lord's yesterday.
Hussain battled for all but 14 overs of a day reduced to 58.2 by bad light to finish unbeaten on 59, but watched helplessly as his team-mates fell at the other end and left England struggling on 183 for 9 on the opening day of the second Test against New Zealand.
Despite reinforcing his message that partnerships were vital if England were to build on their seven-wicket success at Edgbaston in the opening Test, only Hussain and Alec Stewart managed to reach 50 after they had elected to bat on a good batting wicket.
While Hussain applied himself at the crease for nearly four hours, he became more and more frustrated at his colleagues' regular demise and it will need another inspired bowling display to prevent England adding to their dismal Lord's record.
Having won just three of the last 14 Tests at the home of cricket, Hussain would have wanted a total of around 350 to put pressure on the tourists. Instead a succession of poor shots and a lack of application left England once again struggling, continuing a dismal sequence of failing to pass 350 in a first innings at Lord's in all but two of the last 13 Tests stretching back to 1990.
Like a number of his predecessors, Hussain was left helpless watching a number of increasingly disappointing shots which allowed New Zealand to claim the ascendancy even without the prodigious swing bowling skills of the injured Simon Doull.
In Doull's absence the tourists made a wise decision to give Chris Cairns the new ball and he picked up where he left off from his seven-wicket haul during the tour match at Canterbury to grab 5 for 75.
Cairns claimed the early breakthrough, tempting Mark Butcher into a lame drive outside off stump which clipped the inside edge and allowed wicketkeeper Adam Parore to claim a comfortable catch.
England's batsmen, one after the other, chose ever more disappointing methods to join the procession back to the famous Lord's pavilion.
Even Stewart, desperate for runs to salvage his England place after his double failure at Edgbaston, gifted his wicket having battled through an uncertain start to score a crucial half-century.
Graham Thorpe added just seven before beginning England's almost traditional middle-order collapse, fending Cairns weakly outside off-stump and giving second slip Nathan Astle a simple catch. Thorpe's demise was the first of four wickets to fall for 23 runs off 45 balls in just 36 minutes.
Twice the umpires conferred about the light but elected to continue, a factor which may have led to the dismissals of Mark Ramprakash, Aftab Habib and Chris Read in quick succession.
Ramprakash appeared to completely misread the line of the ball and was struck fully on the front foot by Nash's inswinging full toss, and Habib fell in almost identical circumstances to his first-innings dismissal at Edgbaston.
Read seemed to struggle in picking up the flight of the ball and was completely outwitted by Cairns's slower ball as, ducking in anticipation of a beamer, he was instead bowled by a yorker.
Andrew Caddick provided Hussain with belated support and hung around for nearly an hour in a determined if painstaking 25run partnership which lasted 12 overs.
Dean Headley followed six overs later, trapped leg before on the back leg by Cairns, who completed the sixth five-wicket haul of his career when Alan Mullally edged tamely to Astle at second slip in his next over.
With last man Phil Tufnell at the crease all New Zealand had to do was pitch the ball up to stave off a premature end through bad light. But incredibly Cairns instead attempted to unsettle England's number 11 with a series of bouncers which forced the umpires to halt play 31.4 overs early at 4.36 pm.
