Lee Germon won the toss, went boldly forward with the bat and his team were all but out of a five-day game just two hours into it.

All afternoon on the delayed first day it was whispered that New Zealand were keen to abandon ship and come back tomorrow, while England, via motor-mouthpiece David Lloyd, appeared keen to play.

There is a lesson here, one learnt by English county teams who are often stymied by poor weather, which is play when you can because you never know when you can't.

So at 4.30pm when play began, England were ready, fired by a two-hour opportunity, while New Zealand were all over the place and in panic.

If Atherton had won the toss, he too, after a succession of agonised inspections of the pitch, would have batted, and who knows whether his batsmen would have made something of that first evening session. Probably they would, because they were up for it. Probably this was the making of their luck.

It took the England bowlers longer than they hoped to remove Dipak Patel, who delighted in the conditions, and briefly they lost their patience and their focus when they greeted the new kids on the New Zealand block, Geoff Allott and Daniel Vettori, with unworthy short-pitchers.

Vettori must have wondered what the blazes had happened to his life. A month ago, when still a 17-year-old, he completed his school exams; now he was weaving and bobbing from bouncers in a Test match. Vettori is a slim, shambolic figure, the sort whose shirt hangs out and whose trousers sag.

He is part school swot and part school rebel, the sort who chews liquorice in the fifth form and gets caught with a fag behind the bike sheds in the sixth form.

Allott had played two Test matches against Zimbabwe a year ago. The big 25-year-old was a useful rugby player until he twice broke a leg, which convinced mum and dad to suggest cricket.

Allott spent the off-season in the gym working to improve his upper body strength and he is a formid- able sight, quite military with his short haircut and his year of square-bashing.

IT was just the wretched luck of these two left-armers that they had to bowl so much yesterday when the dice were loaded with England. Allott began well enough, working up a head of steam, which ensured that Atherton, in particular, sweated for his runs.

He bowled a little short at Alec Stewart, but may have been forced to do so in part because of the odd field placing gave him neither a mid-off, nor for too long, a mid-on and in part because he does not yet swing the ball in to the right-hander so was wary of over-pitching and leaking runs in defence of New Zealand's small score.

Eventually, with a more practical field set, he caught Stewart flat-footed in the crease with a ball of full length which followed two deliveries that spat at his gloves and forced him back.

His most incisive bowling, though, came at the England captain, who later acknowledged that his new opponent had ``a yard of pace on him''. Atherton was forced to play away from his body more than he liked and to avoid some of the heavy stuff that he was more used to receive from Akram or Ambrose.

If Allott discovers in-swing to go with his away cut and raw but game aggression, he will become some handful.

He could do with the New Zealand selectors choosing more seambowling support so that he can bowl in shorter spells and not toil as he did towards the end of a full day, which will have taught him a great deal about Test match cricket.

Whether Vettori will have learnt much or will have remembered a moment even, heaven only knows. Applause, though, for the selectors this time for they were spot on with their man.

The 18-year-old was unfazed by the whole palaver; by Cork, glaring in that rude fashion that is betraying his talent and style for the game, or by Thorpe dancing down the pitch and driving wide of mid-on.

No, the new boy just did his stuff, did not lose his wicket, barely bowled a bad ball, spun it just a little and varied his flight and length.

He was lucky that England chose not to take him on, not yet anyway, but then one of he or Allott deserved a little luck. Or did they? Perhaps England earned all the luck for themselves.