When England openers Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss walked off to significant boos from the crowd, at 5.40pm it was the fifth stoppage. England were no doubt wary of losing a wicket in the gloom, and thus undoing their hard work of getting to 68 without loss.

Earlier, Ryan Sidebottom held a monopoly on the second-day wickets as New Zealand were finally dismissed for 277.

Left-armer Sidebottom, England's newly-crowed player of the year, took all four to fall.

He finished the innings off when New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori, who made 48, misjudged a delivery and was bowled leaving it alone.

In a drastic improvement from Thursday, Sidebottom returned figures of four for five from 10.1 overs.

It was a stop-start affair, however, due to the London gloom and England were faced with the same tricky conditions in which Michael Vaughan put the Black Caps into bat on Thursday.

Just two balls were sent down in the afternoon session when visibility was first deemed inappropriate and despite an interlude of 21 balls, the players were back in the pavilion again following a second ruling by the umpires.

Sidebottom had made a stunning return after the first break in play, bowling Tim Southee with the first ball back.

He had made a similar impression with the second new ball, following a confident leg before wicket shout by knocking over Kyle Mills' off-stump with a full, swinging delivery.