England's Brydon Carse gestures to the crowd after taking six wickets during play on the fourth day of the first cricket test between England and New Zealand at Hagley Oval in Christchurch, New Zealand.(AP)

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, Dec 1, (AP): New Zealand battled to delay the inevitable but England eventually eased to an eight-wicket win in the first test on Sunday and a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

Resuming on the fourth day with only a four-run lead and four wickets in hand, New Zealand managed to bat through all the first session thanks to Daryl Mitchell who made 84 as a lone rearguard and was the last man out.

Playing in just his third test, Brydon Carse took 6-42 for match figures of 10-196 as New Zealand was bowled out for 252 in its second innings, leaving England needing only 104 runs to win.

New Zealand managed to claim the wicket of Zak Crawley (1) in the second over of England’s innings, then Ben Duckett when the tourists were 55-2 to create a little suspense before the end.

But Jacob Bethell who made an unbeaten 50 from 37 balls, his first half-century in his debut test, and Joe Root, who scored 23 after a first-innings duck, saw England to 104-2 in only 12.4 overs at a run rate of over eight runs per over. The victory came with more than a day and a half to spare.

England’s win was made possible by Harry Brook whose innings of 171 in partnerships of 151 with Ollie Pope (77) and 159 with Ben Stokes (88) propelled England to 499 in its first innings in reply to New Zealand’s 348, a lead of 151.

Carse had three wickets by the end of the third day and took three more Sunday to become the first Englishman since Monty Panesar in 2012 to take 10 wickets in a test overseas.

"Of course, I'm very proud of the outcome today and to be able to win as a team is very satisfying,” Carse said. "I think we were thrown different challenges throughout the game but I think as a group we stuck to certain plans and we got our rewards during the game.”

In a moment of concern for England, captain Ben Stokes completed 6.3 overs during New Zealand’s second innings and could not continue, calling on Gus Atkinson to complete his seventh over. Stokes remained on the field for the remainder of the innings and showed no obvious sign of injury, though he recently had to overcome a hamstring strain.

"We're very happy with how we performed throughout the week,” Stokes said. "We got put under pressure on day two. We were 40-3, and getting a big first innings score and a pretty likable lead was very nice.

"I thought our bowlers were pretty relentless the whole time.”