IN order to find individual England cricketers on the Coopers & Lybrand world ratings it is necessary to employ a good detective agency, and as a team they have dropped low in recent weeks that they might have arrived in New Zealand not bye plane but by some subterranean passage.

Here in downtown Hamilton, however, on the banks of the Waikato River, they have looked pretty fierce This is not as glib as it might sound New Zealand might just prove to be the perfect rehabilitation, centre for Mike Atherton and his players.

They would surely have won their opening fixture against an Academy XI in New Plymouth but for rain.

Since then they have beaten a Selection XI in Palmerston North by an innings and 113 runs and yesterday - they defeated Northern Districts by 10 wickets 20 minutes before tea.

If anything can knock the smile of the players' faces it is the doubtful fitness of their most important bowler, Dominic Cork, who is suffering a soft tissue injury on the right side of his lower back. According to the management he might be fit to play in the first Test at Auckland's Eden Park on Friday.

Yesterday a breezy sounding Cork said he could be fit in a couple of days.