John Terry is glad stricken team-mate Rio Ferdinand will be hanging around the England camp for a bit.

Such is the extent of the knee injury which has ruled the Three Lions skipper out of the World Cup, Ferdinand has been advised not to contemplate a return home until after Saturday's Group C opener against the United States in Rustenburg.

It means the Manchester United man remains in camp, his experience providing a useful sounding board for players who were his team-mates until last Friday's unfortunate turn of events.

He made his way to yesterday's victory over the Platinum Stars rather uncomfortably on crutches and has been hobbling around the training ground this week.

And although Terry can only imagine the internal torture his regular central defensive partner must be going through, the 29-year-old is happy to have Ferdinand around.

"It is great for him to still want to be part of the squad," said Terry.

"He is great fun to have around. When you have a week in between games he is really good because he is always at the heart of the banter.

"But when game mode kicks in he is serious. He talks in the dressing room and has a good influence on the players, so while we are devastated to lose him, it is a positive that he is still here.

"Like everyone else, he realises we still have a very good chance and if we can go a long way a lot of that will be dedicated to Rio."

Ferdinand's injury has also meant a crash course in working on a defensive partnership with Ledley King for Terry.

Ordinarily it would be almost impossible given King rarely trains properly due to his chronic knee condition.

Yet the process is made somewhat easier by the pair's shared London background.

Picking up where you left off as 10-year-olds is not quite like riding a bike, but there are some aspects that come back rather easily.

"Fortunately enough I played with Ledley when we were kids a few years ago," said Terry.

"I have kept in touch with him over the years and the understanding is still there.

"It is up to the manager of course but I am sure he will give us a enough time on the training pitch together to be able to play with each other."

King was back in the gym once again this morning, along with Chelsea duo Ashley and Joe Cole, whilst Terry and most other England players were out on the training ground, getting yesterday's game out of their systems.

As a blow-out ahead of their World Cup campaign, it did not appear to be particularly impressive and certainly Fabio Capello was not too impressed with the first-half showing in particular.

However, Terry viewed it as an essential part of England's build-up, getting them used to both the higher altitude and the new Jabulani ball, both of which look set to cause problems.

"The altitude has been a bit of a surprise," he said. "Your mouth gets really dry for a start.

"Our training ground is at quite a high level anyway but this was another 150 metres above sea level and we certainly felt it."

But it is those lightweight balls that Terry feels provide the greatest danger to unsuspecting players.

The queue of goalkeepers to condemn them is fairly long already. And although the Chelsea captain refused to attack the controversial ball, he did highlight some significant issues in the way it moves around.

"There are going to be problems with the ball for every team," he said.

"It moves about in the air and off the surface. A couple of times yesterday it swerved at the last minute and there is absolutely nothing we can do about that.

"It is something we are trying to work on and improve upon each day in training.

"We just have to try to deal with it the best way we can while at the same time get crosses into the box and cause problems at the other end."