His bowlers may have managed just two wickets in 73 overs today, but Nasser Hussain was pleased with England's preparations for the Test series, which begins on Wednesday at Christchurch. "I'm very satisfied," he said after the three-day game against Canterbury finished in a bore draw. "It was important we got some big runs on the board to get away from that one-day mentality of just playing your shots. We bowled well first up, and if a couple of decisions had gone our way we'd have bowled them out for 100-odd. In the second innings the wicket flattened out and we stuck at it well. There are things obviously we can work on, but they'll come in time."

Hussain admitted that some of the players were still coming to terms with the different conditions in New Zealand after playing so much cricket in India. "We're still a little bit in Indian mode, where we have to bowl a channel and bowl a little bit shorter. Here we've got to get it fuller and straighter. We've got two or three days to work on that.

"The new ball out here is very important. In India you can drag things back with a few overs of spin, but here the Kookaburra ball swings around for 15-20 overs. Then it goes a bit soft. So our use of the new ball is the key and we have to make them play as much as possible."

Hussain said the final XI for the first Test had yet to be finalised but admitted that in his own mind he had got it down to 12 players. "But Duncan Fletcher might view it differently, and we've got to see how people react even in the next three days." The feeling was that it boiled down to a straight choice between Craig White and Mark Ramprakash.

But he refused to be drawn on the question of fitness, which erupted on Wednesday after Fletcher revealed he wasn't happy with the condition of some of the players who had flown out to join the Test leg of this tour. "I've not been involved in anyone's fitness," said Hussain. "All I know is that in the last few weeks various people have held their hands up and said 'pick me for the first-Test side.' If I had 15 people who were fit all the time, it would make things very easy for me. If they're not fit enough, or they're not playing well enough, then they don't play."

Hussain felt that England would start the series as slight underdogs, because of "the slight turnaround in our team and the fact that Atherton, Stewart and Gough aren't here. But we've been underdogs before and fought hard.

"This is the proper cricket," he added. "This is what we've all come for." Now England are just a few days away from finding out exactly how far they have come.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com. You can read his reports here throughout the tour.

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd