England were reduced to 83 for six by Otago, a team that has lost all seven of their first-class matches this season, on a rain-affected first day of the three-day tour match here Saturday.

The second leg of England's tour to New Zealand got off to the worst possible start as Craig Pryor and David Sewell exploited the overcast conditions to take five of the six wickets to fall on a day when only 30 overs of play was possible.

Mark Butcher top-scored with 20 as England collapsed from 50 for two to 69 for six in the space of six calamitous overs with recent arrivals Mark Ramprakash and Usman Afzaal mustering just one run between them.

Butcher was the first to fall when he went leg-before pushing forward to Pryor with the score on 32.

Marcus Trescothick's alarming lack of form continued as he struggled for 20 balls to make six before edging a drive off Sewell to first slip.

Graham Thorpe fell in a similar manner to the same bowler and Ramprakash departed five balls later when he went back to a delivery that kept low and knocked over his off-stump as the ball swung prodigiously.

Afzaal, playing his first innings since the end of September, faced just four balls for nought before dabbing at an off-cutter from Pryor to gift a catch behind.

England lost all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, whose winter-long struggle for runs seems never ending, when he got a thin edge on a cut off James McMillan for 16.