Kiwi cricketer makes history with five wickets in five balls

Central Stags fast bowler Brett Randell became the first player to take five ‌wickets in five balls in first-class cricket on ​Sunday, ⁠producing a remarkable burst on ‌the second day ‌of the Plunket Shield match against Northern Districts in Napier.

The 30-year-old right-armer also became ‌the first bowler to claim six wickets ⁠in eight deliveries and finished with figures of 7-25 from 11 overs. His spell skittled Northern Districts for 82 in reply to Central Districts’ 373.

Brett Randell achieved the feat bowling for Central Districts against Northern Districts on day two of a Plunket Shield four-day match in front of a sparse crowd at Napier's McLean Park.

Records held by the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians show the feat hasn't been achieved since what it and many other historians recognise as the first documented first class match, played in 1772.

Ireland international Curtis Campher took five wickets in five balls in a domestic Twenty20 match last year, becoming the first player to do so in a professional game.

Randell's right-arm seamers scythed through the ND top order. He clean bowled Henry Cooper with the final delivery of his second over before removing fellow-opener and former New Zealand Test batsman Jeet Raval at the start of his third over.

Three more wickets fell from successive balls, including the record-breaking delivery, when international all-rounder Kristian Clarke was bowled.

Randell took two further wickets in his following over as ND were skittled for 82 in response to CD's 373.

Randell claimed 7-25, his best figures in a 38-match first class career that spans nine years.

"I am pretty blown away. ​The high was pretty crazy, it ‌was like a pinch-me moment," Randell said.

"I was trying to stay level-headed and keep putting ⁠the ball in the same area and then after the actual hat-trick, just the same ​things — trying ‌to put the ball in the ‌same area.

"It gets drummed into us a lot that we don't want to go searching ‌for wickets, so ‌I was trying ⁠to just keep bowling the same ‌ball, and our 'Plan A' that we had talked about, and it came ⁠off."

Randell's feat is just the ​eighth hat-trick for the Stags in 75 years of Plunket Shield cricket.

Reuters / AFP