New Zealand beat West Indies in the second Test to take a 1-0 lead in the three-Test series. This was their first win of the 2025-2027 World Test Championship (WTC) Cycle. Jacob Duffy, who made his Test debut earlier this year, took five wickets for 38 to flatten West Indies for just 128 on the third day of the match at Basin Reserve on Friday.
The New Zealand team was missing several frontline bowlers, and Blair Tickner dislocated his shoulder on the first day. Despite all that, New Zealand bowlers rose to the occasion and took 10 wickets of the West Indies for just 128 runs. Their batters only needed to scale a modest target of 56 runs to win the game.
Devon Conway remained unbeaten for 28, and Kane Williamson contributed 16 not out to take their team home. They completed the task before Tea at the cost of just one wicket of their captain, Tom Latham.
Duffy has been on a dream run since his debut. It was his second consecutive five-wicket haul in the series. His fellow pacer, Michael Rae, assisted him brilliantly and took three wickets for 45 runs. It was a debut game for Michael, and he took six wickets in total in both innings.
West Indies drew the first Test with superb tenacity and will in Christchurch last week. They were trailing by 73 runs after the first innings and needed an uphill task to stay alive in the game. But that did not happen, and Kavem Hodge was the highest run scorer for them, and he made 35. Apart from him, only two other players managed to score more than 20 runs.
They were doing well in the first half of the first session. The collapse of the team began with the run-out of Brandon King for the 22. After that, Rae caught and bowled Shai Hope in the same over. With Duffy bowling from one end, wickets continued to fall, and West Indies couldn’t cope with the mounting pressure.