ENGLAND captain Joe Root watched his Test side throw away a seven-year unbeaten streak at home with an abject batting display against New Zealand, but insisted it was not the time to hit the panic button.

The Black Caps dislodged India as the world’s No 1 Test side as a result of their eight-wicket win at Edgbaston, a lofty position that England can only dream of occupying in their present state.

They were second best in the draw at Lord’s and were rounded up in timid fashion in the first hour of day four to suffer their first series setback on home soil since Sri Lanka turned them over 1-0 in 2014.

Weak batting was the obvious cause, with the game effectively settled inside the 27 overs of England’s second innings. By that point the entire top seven had been sent packing by the tourists for a grand total of 76 runs.

There were a succession of poor strokes, veering between injudicious and inelegant, and it took a tail-end fightback from Mark Wood and Olly Stone to make New Zealand return to crease to complete a paltry chase of 38. In all, there were just 11 overs of action today, with England 122 all out after Stone was last man out to very first ball of the day.

While Root can console himself with a career average of 48.68, the next best mark is Rory Burns on 33.23 and the likes of Zak Crawley, Dom Sibley, Ollie Pope and Dan Lawrence all have big question marks against their names.

Despite that the captain suggested belief in the squad was important rather than drastic changes for the India series later this summer.

“We have all underperformed this week. It would be the wrong time to start panicking and rip up all the hard work we have done for such a long period of time,” he said.

“Historically we’ve done that going into major tournaments and going into major series and it’s made things even worse. Ultimately it’s about getting this group, taking what has happened this week and making them better going forward, making them more resilient.

“It’s been a frustrating and disappointing performance and I don’t think we’ve given a fair account of ourselves. We’ve been outplayed in all three departments and particularly the batting. We have to be honest, front up to that and learn some hard lessons.”

Root was careful not to reach too hard for excuses, rejecting the idea that the camp might have been unsettled by the Ollie Robinson Twitter drama — which saw the seamer suspended after the emergence of historic racist and sexist posts.

Root said: “I actually think that once the game came round and the training days came round, we managed to focus solely on the cricket. I don’t think that dripped into the way we played and it would be a bit of an excuse, to be honest.”