Kevin Pietersen's return to opening the innings resulted in a laboured contribution before he became the first of two batsmen bowled in successive balls by Shahid Afridi today.
Pietersen and Alastair Cook survived a succession of minor scrapes in a sedate stand of 57 out of 64 for two in the first 15 overs against Pakistan.
Captain Cook surprisingly outscored his partner as off-spinner Mohammad Hafeez, in particular, proved hard to get away after England had chosen to bat at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in this first of four one-day internationals.
Pietersen, who was to muster a paltry 14 from 36 balls, had three decidedly shaky moments over his first two runs.
A minor fumble at mid-on was enough to allow him to make his ground when he might otherwise have struggled with a scrambled single to get off the mark.
He was still on one when Hafeez squandered Pakistan's sole permitted DRS procedure after Pietersen somehow missed an off-break which got through to his back leg, on the defence, but was not out lbw because impact was outside off-stump.
Then Pietersen rightly invoked DRS again when umpire Ahsan Raza gave him out lbw to a delivery which was clearing the stumps.
Cook needed DRS too, on 30, to overturn the lbw decision of Simon Taufel which was confounded by Hotspot's indication of a big inside edge against Hafeez.
But there was no such refuge for Pietersen soon afterwards, after he missed a leg-break in Afridi's second over and was bowled off-stump.
Jonathan Trott never managed to put bat on ball, missing a delivery from Afridi which snaked through the gate.
Ravi Bopara at least managed to keep out the hat-trick ball but endured a decidedly nervy start.
Hafeez might have had him stumped on one, and then Afridi should have had him lbw on two when Raza unaccountably turned one down that appeared to hit the batsman on the back pad in front of middle stump.
