It was fitting that Kane Williamson and BJ Watling were last to leave the Basin Reserve on Wednesday after singing the celebratory team song pitchside.

The pair’s record-breaking sixth-wicket stand dug the home side out of a major hole to turn the second Test against Sri Lanka and set up a 193-run win.

They lingered longer than their teammates out in the middle before walking off side by side, savouring a Test success that they had conjured up out of nowhere.

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Their partnership of 365 allowed skipper Brendon McCullum to set the visitors a daunting 390 to win the Test and square the series, something they fell well short of after offspinner Mark Craig took 4-53 to help bowl them out for 196 in their second innings.

“For so long, we were miles behind the game and it took something pretty special for us to get out of trouble,” said McCullum after the Kiwis’ eighth win in 12 Tests and a 2-0 series win.

“It was an incredible innings from two fighting blokes. It’s the icing on the cake to be able to go on and get a Test win for both of them.”

It was set up before lunch on the final day with the dismissals of first-innings double century-maker Kumar Sangakkara and captain Angelo Mathews as the hosts slumped to 5-110.

“At the lunch break, we knew we were a big sniff of being able to close out the game.

“It was an excellent effort from our guys to be able to manufacture a win from nowhere really,” McCullum said.

The hosts had trailed by 135 runs on the first innings before the stand between Williamson and Watling, who both hit Test-bests.

Mathews lamented the tourists’ inability to grasp the chances man-of-the-match Williamson offered in his unbeaten 242.

“If we had held on to our catches, it would have been a different story.

“When you get your chances, you can’t let it go,” he said.

Sri Lanka folded meekly after their poor first session.

The visitors began the final day on 1-45 but any faint hopes of a push for victory disappeared when 37-year-old Sangakkara fell in controversial circumstances.

Video umpire Bruce Oxenford overturned the on-field decision of Richard Illingworth, determining the faintest of edges to a Trent Boult ball.

Sangakkara was clearly displeased with the decision, and walked off the Wellington ground, probably for the last time in his career, shaking his head in disbelief.

Williamson showed no ill-effects from his mammoth innings to spectacularly parry a ball from Doug Bracewell and claim it at the second attempt to remove Mathews as Sri Lanka’s ill-discipline with the bat cost them dearly.

Craig claimed two wickets in two balls while opener Kaushal Silva and Lahiru Thirimanne both made half-centuries. But that was the extent of their resistance and, when Tim Southee cleaned up Nuwan Pradeep, the Black Caps could celebrate another victory at home.