A very rare beast ...

Otago cricketer Neil Wagner is talked of as an exciting prospect for New Zealand cricket. He's a left-arm quick bowler, and is currently serving out the last year of a residency stand-down, having decided that we would rather play for New Zealand than his native South Africa.

Wagner has shown a glimpse of his promise this afternoon in Queenstown, as the Herald reports:

Otago paceman Neil Wagner has produced a remarkable spell of bowling against Wellington on day three of the final round of domestic cricket's Plunket Shield competition, taking five wickets in one over.

He dismissed Stewart Rhodes, Joe Austin-Smellie, Jeetan Patel and Ili Tugaga off the first four balls of the over before taking Mark Gillespie off the sixth ball.

A hat-trick is a rare enough beast. But Wagner has gone one step further, taking a double hat-trick; the first with the first three balls of the over, and the second with balls two, three and four. Wagner narrowly missed out on a triple hat-trick by only being able to dismiss Mark Gillespie second ball!

For Wellington, it was a collapse that the Black Caps would have been proud of. From 136 for four to 136 for nine in the course of one over is pretty impressive and memorable, if for all the wrong reasons!

Neil Wagner's availablility for selection for New Zealand later in the year will be a bonus if he can reproduce this kind of wicket-taking form. In the meantime, he should reflect on a day on which he has sent cricket tragics and stats gurus into the kind of delight that only cricket can engender.