WELLING­TON, New Zealand – Ja­cob Duffy and Michael Rae grabbed two late wick­ets to put New Zealand in firm con­trol of the sec­ond Test af­ter a coura­geous ef­fort by the West In­dies’ bowlers brought them back in­to con­tention on Thurs­day’s sec­ond day.

Rae pro­duced a bril­liant in­swinger to bowl John Camp­bell, while Duffy trapped night­watch­man An­der­son Phillip plumb in front, as the Windies end­ed the day per­ilous­ly placed on 32 for two, still 41 runs in ar­rears.

Ear­li­er, led by pac­er An­der­son Phillip, the Windies did well to bowl out the home side for 278 and re­strict their first in­nings lead to a man­age­able 73, af­ter they had looked poised to score much more.

Re­sum­ing from their overnight to­tal of 24 with­out loss, New Zealand added 16 more runs be­fore Ke­mar Roach pro­duced a gem of a de­liv­ery that beat cap­tain Tom Lath­am’s in­side edge and knocked over his off stump.

De­von Con­way and Kane Williamson then frus­trat­ed the vis­i­tors’ bowl­ing at­tack for close to an hour and a half dur­ing a 67-run part­ner­ship.

The Windies should have had the wick­et of Con­way when he was 29 and the score 47 for one, but Bran­don King could not hold on to a sharp chance at leg slip off the bowl­ing of Jay­den Seales.

Con­way seized the op­por­tu­ni­ty and even­tu­al­ly reached his 13th Test half cen­tu­ry off 90 balls just be­fore the lunch break by dri­ving Ojay Shields to deep back­ward point and col­lect­ing two runs.

The pair looked set to car­ry their side to the break, but Phillip rat­tled Williamson’s stumps af­ter he scored a brisk 37 off 46 balls with lunch in sight.

West In­dies grabbed the mo­men­tum im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter play re­sumed, with Roach hav­ing new bats­man Rachin Ravin­dra caught be­hind for five, while Justin Greaves was for­tu­nate to dis­miss Con­way for 60 af­ter he edged a loose ball down the leg side be­hind to wick­et­keep­er Tevin Im­lach, to leave New Zealand 117 for four.

How­ev­er, Mitchell Hay and Daryl Mitchell came to their side’s res­cue in a part­ner­ship of 73 that changed the com­plex­ion of the match.

Phillip got the break­through when he had Mitchell caught down the leg­side by Im­lach for 25, with the score 190 for five.

Debu­tant Hay brought up his maid­en Test half cen­tu­ry by dri­ving Shields for two bound­aries as New Zealand went to tea at 200 for five, just five runs adrift of the Windies’ first in­nings to­tal.

They du­ly passed that score and looked set on es­tab­lish­ing a big lead but were sti­fled by some pin­point bowl­ing.

Hay pulled Shields for two con­sec­u­tive bound­aries but picked out Roach at fine leg at­tempt­ing a third to be out caught for 61, with the score 213 for six.

Glenn Phillips scored 18 be­fore slog­ging off spin­ner Ros­ton Chase in­to the hands of Phillip sta­tioned at deep mid­wick­et, while Phillip re­turned to dis­miss Duffy for 11 and Jay­den Seales wrapped up the in­nings by bowl­ing Rae, to see New Zealand lose their last five wick­ets for 65 runs.

Phillip was the Windies’ best bowler with 3-70, while Roach took 2-43.

Need­ing to nav­i­gate the fi­nal half hour of play, the West In­dies start­ed ner­vous­ly, with Duffy floor­ing a tough re­turn catch of­fered by Bran­don King be­fore he had scored.

Camp­bell ex­e­cut­ed two pull shots and an au­da­cious cov­er dri­ve off the bowl­ing of Zak Foulkes in the fourth over, and King al­so hit him for two con­sec­u­tive bound­aries in his next over to see them mo­tor to 24 with­out loss af­ter six overs.

But the in­tro­duc­tion of Rae proved to be de­ci­sive, as he knocked over Camp­bell’s off stump with his fifth de­liv­ery as the bats­man shoul­dered arms to an in­swinger.

The de­ci­sion to send in Phillip as a night­watch­man back­fired, with Duffy hav­ing him lbw af­ter fac­ing just three balls.

Phillip was ini­tial­ly giv­en not out by the um­pire, but a re­view showed the ball would have can­noned in­to off stump.

WEST IN­DIES 205 & 32-2 in 10 overs (Bran­don King 15 not out, John Camp­bell 14).

NEW ZEALAND 278 in 74.4 overs (De­von Con­way 60, Mitchell Hay 52 not out, Kane Williamson 37, Daryl Mitchell 25, Zak Foulkes 23 not out, Glenn Phillips 18, Michael Rae, 13, Ja­cob Duffy 11, Tom Lath­am 11; An­der­son Phillip 3-70, Ke­mar Roach 2-43).

Toss: New Zealand elect­ed to field.

Po­si­tion: West In­dies trail New Zealand

by 41 runs in their sec­ond in­nings

with eight wick­ets re­main­ing.

Um­pires: Paul Reif­fel, Al­lad­hud­di­en Palek­er.

TV Um­pire: Alex Wharf.

Re­serve Um­pire: Cory Black

Match Ref­er­ee: Jav­a­gal Sri­nath.

(CMC)