Brett Randell takes five wickets in five balls to make first-class history
There have been hat-tricks, and there have been double hat-tricks, but nobody in the history of first-class cricket had ever managed five wickets in five balls. Brett Randell changed that on Sunday, dismantling Northern Districts' top order in a spell that left batters, umpires and even his own teammates struggling to process what had just happened.
How it unfolded
Randell, a 30-year-old right-arm seamer, struck with the final delivery of his second over, then took four more wickets with the first four balls of his next. The sequence left Northern Districts in ruins, and the damage did not stop there. Randell finished with career-best figures of 7 for 25 from 11 overs as Northern Districts were bowled out for just 82, their lowest-ever Plunket Shield total.
The sport has recorded triple hat-tricks before in lower forms of the game, but nobody had done it in first-class cricket since the format's origins in 1772. That it happened in a domestic Plunket Shield match in Napier, rather than under the lights of a packed international ground, only adds to its charm.
Central Districts cash in
Northern Districts simply had no answer to Randell's relentless line and length on a surface that offered him just enough movement. The 82 all out will go down as one of the worst batting collapses in the competition's history, and Randell's name will sit alongside it as the man who made it happen.
It is the kind of performance that lands out of nowhere. Randell had been a steady contributor for Central Districts over the years, but nothing in his record hinted at something this extraordinary. Five wickets. Five balls. A record that stood for two and a half centuries, broken in the space of a single over.
