At a glance

Tim Southee’s journey to 300 wickets:

■ 1: v England in Napier; March 22,

2008, Michael Vaughan lbw for 2

■ 50: v India in Bangalore; September 2, 2012, MS Dhoni lbw for 62

■ 100: v West Indies in Hamilton; December 21, 2013, Veerasammy Permaul lbw for 0

■ 150: v Australia in Adelaide; November 28, 2015; Adam Voges caught Martin Guptill for 13

■ 200: v Bangladesh in Christchurch; January 23, 2017, Shakib al Hassan caught Colin de Grandhomme for 8

■ 250: v Sri Lanka in Colombo; August 26, 2019, Dimuth Karunaratne lbw for 21

■ 300: v Pakistan in Mount Maunganui; December 29, 2020

Haris Sohail was the batsman, on his way for nine early in the final session of day four, granting Southee entry to an exclusive club of New Zealanders to take 300 test wickets, which now consists of him, former team-mate Daniel Vettori, and the country’s greatest cricketer, Sir Richard Hadlee.

After celebrating with family on the embankment, he said it was ‘‘special’’ to join that club.

‘‘Obviously not many people have been able to do it and the two that have, they’re two of our greatest cricketers, so to be in that bracket with those guys.

‘‘When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was play cricket for New Zealand and to sit here after a reasonable time of doing that, having achieved a couple of things along the way, it’s a pretty cool feeling.’’

Southee’s 300th wicket was his second in Pakistan’s second innings. At stumps the visitors were 71-3, needing to score 302 more to win or to bat out the final day to draw and deny New Zealand a fifth successive home win.

Southee said the milestone had been in the background throughout the test, but that his focus had been on doing his best for his team – one of whom celebrated slightly prematurely.

‘‘You know you’re reasonably close and the guys kept reminding us – Wags [Neil Wagner] was actually one ahead of everyone else, he thought it was the first one and came in and gave me a big hug, and I was thinking ‘What’s going on here mate?’.’’

Now he’s joined the 300-wicket club, which consists of just 34 members worldwide, Southee can set his sights on joining Hadlee in the 400-wicket club, which contains just 16 members, all told.

Then there’s the possibility of surpassing Hadlee, who took 431