They got off to a bright start in snowy conditions at St Jakob-Park and might have opened the scoring inside a minute when Basle failed to clear Riise's right-wing cross and Jonathan Greening came close to poking home.
Rooney put his personal troubles to one side at StJakob Park to score an early opener and his first international goal for a year - paving the way for England to make it a maximum six points from their first two Euro 2012 qualifiers.