Joe Root (115*) and Ben Foakes (32*) took only 13.5 overs on the fourth morning to get the 61 runs England needed to win the first Test match, at Lord's. Kane Williamson opened bowling with his senior fast bowlers, Tim Southee and Trent Boult. While Southee attacked the wicket, Boult kept the ball away from the right-hander's off stump. However, neither bothered Root or Foakes to the slightest.
Williamson recalled Kyle Jamieson (4-79), New Zealand's most successful bowler of the innings, in the third over, but little changed. Foakes settled down before pushing Jamieson past point, then driving him past mid on, to found the boundary twice. Soon afterwards, Root hit Jamieson down the ground for four more.
The closest New Zealand came to claiming a wicket was when Root almost chopped one from Southee on to the wicket. Instead, the ball beat the stumps and Tom Blundell to reach the boundary, and Root moved to 96. He flicked one in Southee's next over to pick up two runs to reach his 26th hundred and become the 14th cricketer, and second Englishman (after Alastair Cook). to reach 10,000 Test runs.
England needed 10 to win when Southee began the 14th over of the morning. Root played the first ball through the slips and drove the second past mid off to get eight of these, and dispatched the fifth ball to the mid-wicket fence to seal the Test match. The crowd cheered, first to celebrate a rare win for England; then after the PA system announced that they would get a full refund for the day's ticket, for the day's action had got over before the cutoff of 15 overs.
Brief scores
New Zealand 132 (Colin de Grandhomme 42*; Matthew Potts 4-13, James Anderson 4-66) and 285 (Daryl Mitchell 108; Matthew Potts 3-55) lost to England 141 (Zak Crawley 43; Tim Southee 4-55) and 279/5 (Joe Root 115*; Kyle Jamieson 4-79) by 5 wickets. Player of the Match: Joe Root.