Sideline Sid Sports correspondant & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Western Bay of Plenty Black Cap quick bowler Trent Boult reached an iconic milestone on the second day of the Boxing Day test in Christchurch, when he became just the 12th Kiwi bowler to take 100 wickets in the test arena.

The feat has pretty much flown under the radar, with plenty of other activities taking centre stage over the festive season.

Trent not only wrote his name into the annals of New Zealand cricket history, but grabbed the third-quickest one hundred wickets in his 29th test for his country, behind Sir Richard Hadlee (25 tests) and Bruce Taylor (27).

Adding to the accolades was the news that Trent had risen to seventh place the ICC World rankings – not bad for a young fellow who went to Tauranga Intermediate and Otumoetai College.

One of Sideline Sid's joys over the last decade has been the opportunity, as a local cricket scribe, to watch the development of our local Black Caps from the Western Bay junior and secondary school ranks, up to wearing the New Zealand uniform.

Trent, along with Kane Williamson and current Northern Knights skipper Daniel Flynn, have all worked extremely hard to achieve excellence in their chosen sport.

Over the last ten years, Sid has had the chance to watch Trent in action as he developed his game, usually in front of just a handful of spectators. There are three matches over the years which stand out like a worker wearing a fluorescent green vest.

The weekend before Christmas 2006, Bay of Plenty Cricket witnessed an occurrence that could have come out of the annals of Ripley's Believe it or Not! Against what must have been astronomical odds, five hat-tricks were bowled in two days of Bay of Plenty cricket.

While local cricket statisticians were still digesting three hat-tricks the previous day, these feats would prove to be just an entrée to what took place at the Tauranga Domain on Sunday, December 17, 2006.

An 18-year-old Trent added the icing to the cake when he took two hat-tricks for the Tauranga representative team in the Attrill Cup final. He was almost unplayable, achieving two-hat tricks in his dismissal of seven Eastern Bay batsmen.

In a frightening display of pace bowling, Boult removed the Eastern Bay top order of Barry Kilgariff, Brook Simpson and Tom Yates with successive balls.

Less than twenty minutes later, it was the turn of James Mitchell, who had taken one of the hat-tricks in club cricket the previous day, Dean Butterworth and Joe Taylorto fall to three successive balls unleashed by Trent.

Sideline Sid was also there when Trent took the opportunity of a short break before the England tour of New Zealand, to turn out for Otumoetai Cadets against Greerton, with spectacular results on February 2, 2013.

Cadets were removed for what looked to be a modest 130 runs. Trent opened the bowling and immediately had the Greerton top order in desperate trouble, dismissing the first three batsmen for ducks.

Bay of Plenty representative master blaster Brett Hampton showed some resistance to Boult, however when he was removed for 20 and Greerton were in real trouble. Boult continued his express deliveries and finished the match with eight wickets for 37 runs, as Greerton were dismissed for 93.

The third occasion that will stay with Sid for a long time was when the two Boult brothers took all ten wickets for Cadets in a Williams Cup match against arch rivals Te Puke at the Tauranga Domain in 2008.

Trent grabbed the first four top order wickets before older brother Jono got in on the action with the next two bowling scalps.

Trent then wrapped up the Te Puke turn at bat with the last four wickets as Te Puke were rolled for 53, to finish with the remarkable figures of eight wickets at a cost of just 25 runs, with Jono finishing with 2/17.