Only Bert Sutcliffe has higher individual scores than Bruce in New Zealand’s first-class history
ESPNcricinfo staff06-Mar-2025Tom Bruce has made the third-highest score in New Zealand first-class history with 345 for Central Stags against Auckland in the Plunket Shield.Bruce, who has played 17 T20Is, faced 401 balls and hit 36 fours alongside six sixes. Only one player, Bert Sutcliffe, has higher scores than Bruce in the New Zealand game with 355 and 385 for Otago.”I don’t think it’s really sunk in, to be fair, at the moment,” Bruce said at the end of play. “It’s obviously pretty special and something I’m incredibly proud of, and will certainly look back, probably after this game and probably once I’ve done my career, to think that it was pretty special and yeah, pretty proud of that achievement.”Having been unbeaten on 212 after the first day, he brought up his triple-century with a dab into the leg side from his 379th delivery.
When Bruce went to 339, he surpassed Roger Blunt’s 1931-32 score, also for Otago, having previously moved past Dean Brownlie (334 in 2014-15) and Devon Conway (327 not out in 2019-2020). Michael Papps and Peter Fulton also have triple-centuries in New Zealand’s domestic cricket.Bruce had come to the crease with his team 29 for 2, which became 75 for 3. He then added 292 with Dane Cleaver for the fourth wickets and 303 with Josh Clarkson for the fifth – both new records for Central Stags – before finally being caught down the leg side sweeping at Louis Delport. The Auckland players quickly made their way towards Bruce to congratulate him.Overall, it was the 11th century of Bruce’s first-class career. On the opening day, he went past 6000 first-class runs with his one-day form in the Ford Trophy helping him construct this epic and come out of a red-ball rut where he had made only 79 runs in his first four matches of the season.”I think I only scored probably a combined 50 runs, so that was a bit of a work-on for me,” Bruce said. “Obviously, heading into this back half of four day [season], you know, I pride myself on the red-ball game and wanted to contribute to the boys, so yeah, I was a wee bit disappointed with my form in that format. But yeah, certainly white ball, yeah, the runs were going well.”I was just having a really positive mindset and just looking to attack everything in the white-ball format. Sort of led to myself, yeah, just sort of freeing up a wee bit and playing with a bit more freedom, which allows me to play at my best, so certainly, yeah, was wanting to improve on my first four-day games. It wasn’t great, so yeah, really, really nice to get out there and spend a lot of time out in the middle and something that, yeah, I was certainly wanting to do.”
