In front of a sparse crowd at a New Zealand domestic ground, a 30-year-old seamer did something that had not happened once in the entire recorded history of first-class cricket — a format dating back to 1772.
Brett Randell became the first player in 254 years of first-class cricket to take five wickets in five consecutive deliveries, bowling for Central Districts against Northern Districts in a Plunket Shield match at Napier's McLean Park.
How It Unfolded
Chasing Central Districts' first-innings total of 373, Northern Districts' reply fell apart in the space of a single over. Randell had already removed opener Henry Cooper with the last ball of his second over — a sharp inswinger that clattered the stumps. Then came the sequence that made history:
- Jeet Raval (former Black Caps Test opener) — dismissed with the very next ball
- Joe Carter — edged behind to complete the hat-trick
- Robert O'Donnell — caught in the slips
- Kristian Clarke (New Zealand international all-rounder) — bowled, completing the historic five-in-five
Randell wasn't done. He added a sixth and seventh wicket shortly after, giving him seven wickets in an astounding spell. At one stage, his figures read an unreal 7 for 4. He eventually finished with 7 for 25 from 11 overs — career-best figures in a 38-match first-class career spanning nine years — as Northern Districts were skittled for just 82 and forced to follow on.
Why This Record Is Such a Big Deal
Context matters enormously here. According to the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians, this feat had never been recorded since the first officially recognized first-class match was played all the way back in 1772. That's over two and a half centuries of first-class cricket, played by tens of thousands of bowlers across dozens of countries, and nobody had ever managed it.
While five-in-five had occurred in shorter T20 formats — such as Ireland's Curtis Campher in domestic cricket — Randell's achievement in red-ball, four-day cricket stands alone as a world first.
In His Own Words
Randell, who also had a brief stint with English county side Somerset, was refreshingly candid after the historic session:
"I am pretty blown away. The high was pretty crazy, it was like a pinch-me moment. It's seriously cool, I don't really have any words at the moment, to be honest. I was just trying to stay level-headed and keep putting the ball in the same area."
The Bottom Line
Brett Randell's name now sits permanently in cricket's record books alongside the game's greatest legends — not for a Test match or a World Cup final, but for an astonishing sequence of deliveries in a domestic fixture that made global headlines. It is a timeless reminder that cricket's most remarkable moments can happen on any given day.