At once the England players jumped, hugged and shook hands (the captain mainly shook hands, having more of the traditional English reserve in him).
They had won on merit against a disorganised New Zealand team, who are ripe for beating, were all but beaten in Auckland and now were annihilated by an innings at the Basin Reserve in Wellington. A winter of despair and distrust for England had suddenly turned to spring.
Some respected observers, among them Bobby Simpson, who arrived especially for this match but missed the delayed first evening, which England so dominated, thought that the cricket lacked intensity until the final two sessions, during which all the New Zealand second-innings wickets fell.
Heaven knows what they would have made of what had gone before, because the play during these last few days was quite the best for a long time.
The key to England's success came in two areas. First, the right team was chosen, the one which included the best five bowlers. This was only the sixth time in 26 Test matches that England had taken all 20 of the opposition's wickets, so the argument for putting five specialist bowlers down on the team sheet and letting the rest take care of themselves can have no dissenter.
Second was the focus of the team, who were clearly shaken out of their self-satisfaction by that numbing last afternoon in Auckland when they could not get rid of Danny Morrison. All winter they have kidded themselves that their cricket was OK. Morrison proved to them that it was not.
Intensity has been the byword around the Basin Reserve during the match. Call it what you will - and concentration, commitment, purpose and urgency will all do in explanation of the improvement - the fact is that England appeared utterly focused on their job and quite determined, for once, to play each session as if it were their last.
Simpson's main grumble was about the third evening when England, having been bowled out with a lead of 259, failed to take a wicket in an hour and a half of insipid attack. He would not say it, but he must have imagined his recent Australian team responding to such a lead by swarming all over a vulner- able opponent and crushing him there and then.
But Simpson is wise enough to remember the days of the midEighties when he took charge of Australian cricket and England swarmed all over him.
DURING that time Simpson's own team had no confidence and, because of it, did not know how to make the best of their opportunities. Only when they discovered how to focus more consistently, how to eradicate mental sloppiness, how not to let the fish off the hook, did they start to win.
On the fourth afternoon, and then again yesterday morning, Simpson saw this happen with England. He, we, saw England take wickets with their personality and with the force of their will, which dissolved New Zealand's uncertain defence.
Robert Croft started it, throwing his off-breaks high and pitching into the danger areas outside off stump. It is something to watch Croft's face before delivery as it screws up in the aggressive way of a fast bowler and almost bursts with delight at the taking of a wicket.
Croft truly spun the ball, wrapping his fingers around it and fizzing it into the air, before watching it hiss and bounce at the nervous batsman. It was the Welshman's spell of three for nought in 14 balls on that fourth evening which got England on their way.
It was Croft's room-mate, the incorrigible Yorkshireman Darren Gough, who finished the job, and it was Andrew Caddick, Gough's sidekick, who set his partner up.
The confused selection in Harare, and then again in Auckland, had Alan Mullally and Craig White selected ahead of Caddick and misunderstood the value of a genuine seam-hitting type bowler, who complements the work of the 'swingers', Gough and Dominic Cork.
For a time not so long ago Angus Fraser played this role of the straight man to the eccentricities of Devon Malcolm. Now Caddick was responding to Gough, and it made for good watching.
The brilliance of England's close catching was far too much for a lamentable New Zealand team, who are afflicted by too much internal strife to stand in the way of a properly committed England in the final Test of the series at Christchurch.