A flurry of wickets from Curtly Ambrose, in a final brief session of a day ruined by rain showers, knocked England back after Mike Atherton and Alec Stewart had threatened to survive a torrid start to the final Test.

Having been put in to bat on yet another poor pitch the English openers, in four periods spread over the day, put on 27 for the first wicket before Atherton was caught by Dinanath Ramnarine low down in the gully slicing an attempted drive.

Three balls later Mark Butcher, who had begun the series in Jamaica with a first-ball duck, got another nought, slashing wildly outside off stump with Brian Lara juggling the catch at first slip. Stewart will resume this morning on 18 having survived three chances as England reached 35 for two.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the final Test of a series that has never been without controversy is being played on a muckheap.

Atherton and Stewart never flinched against the new-ball bowling of Courtney Walsh and Ambrose. But they would have had every right to on Antigua's new much-vaunted mega-pitch. The first ball of the match, very much an exploratory bouncer from Walsh, looped gently over Atherton but dropped short of the wicketkeeper.

The fifth ball, however, was on a length and burst through the crusty surface of the pitch before spitting wickedly at the England captain. He took the blow on that unprotected part of his left forearm between glove and arm-guard and was fortunate there was no more damage than a bit of bruising and pain.

By the time lunch and the comfort of a few ice packs were reached, 11 overs had been bowled, each delivery being negotiated by the openers as if they were defusing unexploded bombs.

Shortly before the interval Ambrose, from a length barely short of full, almost punched a hole through Stewart's sternum, the blow knocking him to his knees and winding him. The openers had survived, through a balance of skill and good fortune, rather as an infantryman might have got through a few days on the Somme.

The local cricket authority and the West Indies Cricket Board have to share responsibility, not so much for the decision to dig up a knackered old surface that was starting to provide anodyne Test cricket but for believing that a new pitch could be relaid and suitable for international matches in a matter of months rather than several years of compaction.