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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine

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Speaker 1: from Newstalk ZEDB.

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Speaker 2: During the week past Central Stags cricket captain Tom Bruce

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Speaker 2: posted the third highest score in New Zealand first class

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Speaker 2: cricket history three hundred and forty five against Auckland at

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Speaker 2: Eden Parks at Arroval, the highest first class score in

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Speaker 2: New Zealand since nineteen fifty two, when the late great

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Speaker 2: Bert Sutcliffe produced his national record of three hundred and

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Speaker 2: eighty five. In fact, Bert Sutcliffe is the only person

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Speaker 2: to score more runs in an innings than Tom Bruce.

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Speaker 2: He also scored three hundred and fifty five in a

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Speaker 2: Planket Shield match in nineteen fifty Tom Bruce batted for

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Speaker 2: almost nine and a half hours, his three hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty five coming off just four hundred and one balls,

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Speaker 2: thirty six fours and six six's. Tom Bruce's with us.

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Speaker 2: Congratulations mate, With the benefit of a couple of days hindsight,

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Speaker 2: how do you reflect back on this remarkable innings?

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Speaker 3: Thanks having me, Yeah, yeah, it's all all a bit

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Speaker 3: surrealtive this, Yeah, it probably still hadn't sunk in I

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Speaker 3: think maybe, yeah, maybe once a career is done or

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Speaker 3: end of the season. I look back and I'll sort

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Speaker 3: of put it into context, and I'm obviously pretty proud

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Speaker 3: of the achievement. I'm proud of the now score that

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Speaker 3: many runs. But yeah, that's all feeling a bit surreal

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Speaker 3: at the moment.

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Speaker 2: I bet you came into what twenty nine for two,

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Speaker 2: then that became seventy five for three. Was your early

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Speaker 2: intention really just to kind of steady the ship a bit?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we obviously we wanted a bowl first as well,

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Speaker 3: so it was a good toss to lose in the

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Speaker 3: end there, but yeah, we knew it was a green

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Speaker 3: wick at them. We wanted to make first use of it,

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Speaker 3: and so we sort of knew as a betting group that,

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Speaker 3: I mean, abe Elkan bowlers are going to put it

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Speaker 3: in some pretty testing areas and test us out there. Done. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: fortunately I was able to get through that and someting

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Speaker 3: knew once got through my first twenty thirty balls, and yeah,

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Speaker 3: I was seeing it a ride and it was feeling

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Speaker 3: pretty good. It was just about making sure you can

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Speaker 3: stick to your game plan for for long periods of

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Speaker 3: time and show that discipline, and yeah, fortunately it Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I was able to do that and tomorrow Earth. You know,

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Speaker 3: a school like that was just really pleasing, and you.

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Speaker 2: Got together with a couple of your teammates for for

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Speaker 2: really good partnerships. He had a two hundred and ninety

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Speaker 2: two with Dane Cleaver for the fourth wicket, three hundred

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Speaker 2: and three with Josh Clarkson for the fifth, both new

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Speaker 2: records incidentally for the Central Stags. As far as partnerships

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Speaker 2: are concerned, How helpful was it to you to be

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Speaker 2: involved in such significant long partnerships during your own innings?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeahs a better unit. You always talk about, you know,

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Speaker 3: building partnerships, you know, with a couple of guys, and

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Speaker 3: it was awesome to be out of bet with Dane

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Speaker 3: and Josh for that long and build those partnerships.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: Obviously without those guys there and you know, there's there's sitting,

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Speaker 3: no way a bit of better to make three forty five,

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Speaker 3: So it was really crucial that those guys got going

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Speaker 3: as well, and you're just really pleased for them. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: Dane had been the form better for us in the

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Speaker 3: four days before Christmas, and it was just awesome that

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Speaker 3: he carried that form on and obviously Josh had hadn't

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Speaker 3: played a whole lot of ford A cricket before Christmas,

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Speaker 3: he was injured, so really stoked for him to get

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Speaker 3: some quality time in the middle. And both of them

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Speaker 3: played really mature knocks and it was just awesome to

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Speaker 3: sort of bounce off them and feed off there this

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Speaker 3: sort of energy as well in the middle, so it

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Speaker 3: was awesome. You know, a couple of my good mates

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Speaker 3: as well, So just really stoked for them to both

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Speaker 3: be able to get three figures as well.

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Speaker 2: You're right there for nine and a half hours. Did

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Speaker 2: fatigue start to become a factor at any stage?

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Speaker 3: Not really, No, I think you're sort of you just

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Speaker 3: become accustomed to it. Maybe if it was at the

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Speaker 3: start of the season and the body is not used

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Speaker 3: to betting so so long out in the middle, But yeah,

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Speaker 3: I think once we're in the crux of the season,

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Speaker 3: your body just becomes accustomed to betting. And you know,

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Speaker 3: fortunately we went running too many tight singles or anything

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Speaker 3: like that, so there's a few boundaries in between them,

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Speaker 3: and yeah, certainly we were able to, yeah, not become

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Speaker 3: fatigued or give too many chances.

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Speaker 2: I've heard that you gave just two chances in the

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Speaker 2: entire innings. I certainly hope for the sake of whoever

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Speaker 2: dropped them that it wasn't. When you're on about fourteen

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Speaker 2: or something, what at what stage of the links did

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Speaker 2: you offer up a couple of, you know, little snippets

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Speaker 2: of hope to the Auckland side.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, to be sare they were pretty tough ones. There

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Speaker 3: was a leg side something I was the spinner just

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Speaker 3: sort of lost balance. I was on about forty seven

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Speaker 3: I think then. And then there was one when I

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Speaker 3: was on I think like a one handed diving attempt.

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Speaker 3: So a couple of really tough chances. But yeah, certainly, yeah,

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Speaker 3: yes I've taken those. Obviously we wouldn't have been having

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Speaker 3: this conversation, and yeah, it wouldn't be wouldn't be where

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Speaker 3: we are now.

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Speaker 2: It's funny a week ago you probably didn't think you'd

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Speaker 2: be saying the scenence I gave a chance when I

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Speaker 2: was on two ninety.

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Speaker 3: As clearly not certainly not. I didn't score many too

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Speaker 3: many runs in the first floor four day games before Christmas,

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Speaker 3: so yeah, even even to be saying I've scored over

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Speaker 3: probably forty you know, it would have been really good. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: very very heavy.

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Speaker 2: Were you aware of the records you were breaking along

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Speaker 2: the way?

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Speaker 3: The only one I knew of was the Central Stags one,

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Speaker 3: the top top run score for them. I knew Peter

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Speaker 3: Ingram had to record at two forty seven a few

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Speaker 3: years ago. Ben Smith I was playing for them, and

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Speaker 3: he made two hundred and forty four, and obviously the

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Speaker 3: guys were talking about how he just missed out on

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Speaker 3: the record. So I knew that one, but I didn't

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Speaker 3: know anything else of the sorts or any of the

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Speaker 3: partnership records until the end of the day. So it's

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Speaker 3: one of those ones you don't really look too much

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Speaker 3: into those sort of just probably happened afterwards. But yeah're

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Speaker 3: pretty cool to be up there. Was it the third

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Speaker 3: third highest and I'm playing at Shield and well first

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Speaker 3: class in New Zeland behind you know, the legion that

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Speaker 3: was Bert Cyclists.

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Speaker 2: When you get to three hundred and forty odd, do

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Speaker 2: you start to think about getting four hundred.

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Speaker 3: Like I was. I had a few people sort of

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Speaker 3: messaging and saying, oh, you know, you should just keep

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Speaker 3: adding and keep adding and don't worry about declaring. But

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Speaker 3: we yeah, you know, trying to get to four hundred

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Speaker 3: and like look break Brian Lar's record or something like that.

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Speaker 3: But no, it was one of those ones when we

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Speaker 3: were bat in first, we we didn't have a number

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Speaker 3: in mind when we wanted to declare, but it was

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Speaker 3: probably helpful that I did get out when I did,

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Speaker 3: and we were just able to clear soon after that,

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Speaker 3: and once Clark he had got us to seven hundred,

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Speaker 3: So yeah, it was just fortunately we went from six

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Speaker 3: hundred to seven hundred pretty quickly, so we were able

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Speaker 3: to get going and just sort of runs and just

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Speaker 3: once we got seven hundred, it was yeah, finally pool

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Speaker 3: And so it was always going to be declaring once

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Speaker 3: we got a number, regardless of what if I was

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Speaker 3: still betting or if Karky was still betting.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, you mentioned before about the early part of

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Speaker 2: the season. Yeah, four planket shield matches. He had six

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Speaker 2: beats for seventy nine runs total. Why was former but

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Speaker 2: hard to come by with the red ball early in

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Speaker 2: the in the season.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I just struggled that first part. I think

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Speaker 3: I was put too much expectations on myself, to be honest,

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Speaker 3: which then probably hampered Yeah, just my clarity and decision

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Speaker 3: making out in the middle. So yeah, certainly I played

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Speaker 3: for a bit more freedom this last innings and just

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Speaker 3: went back to basics really, So I've got a pretty

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Speaker 3: simple game turn and a pretty simple technique, so once

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Speaker 3: I sort of stick with that, and like I said,

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Speaker 3: just show discipline and my decision making over a long

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Speaker 3: periods of time. You know, I know I can score

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Speaker 3: runs and school them quickly. So yeah, it was just

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Speaker 3: back to basics really. But yeah, certainly certain struggled those

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Speaker 3: first four games and certainly felt like I owed the

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Speaker 3: team of fair few runs. So you said, there's seven

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Speaker 3: year uns and six innings, Yeah, one and two flash,

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Speaker 3: So definitely, oh the boys for your runs out there.

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Speaker 2: But then went into the white ball staff terrific three

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Speaker 2: hundred and thirty nine runs at fifty six and striking

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Speaker 2: at one fifty seven and the super smash four hundred

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Speaker 2: and thirty four trophy runs and ten inning striking it

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Speaker 2: better than a run a ball. So clearly it's possible

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Speaker 2: to play yourself into red ball form with the white.

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Speaker 1: Ball, is it?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely? I think you know, guys sort of chop

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Speaker 3: and change between white bull and red bull pretty quickly now,

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Speaker 3: and you have to adapt pretty quickly. So I think

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Speaker 3: the white ball is really good for the red bull game.

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Speaker 3: You know, you can get into some really good positions

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Speaker 3: and play some strong shots, and it's just about doing that,

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Speaker 3: like I said, for long periods of time the red bulls.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, that's one of those things. I've been about

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Speaker 3: him really well and had a good season so far

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Speaker 3: other than those first four four day games. So it's

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Speaker 3: just nice to get out there spin spin a really

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Speaker 3: long and long time out there, and so it was

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Speaker 3: nice being able to go straight from white ball straight

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Speaker 3: into red bull and it certainly helped me the other day.

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Speaker 2: It certainly did well. No one can ever take it

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Speaker 2: away from him, mate, three hundred and forty five. What

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Speaker 2: in an anxete you do, at some stage get the

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Speaker 2: chance to move out of the surreal stage and into

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Speaker 2: accepting exactly what you've done, because it's an absolutely outstanding

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Speaker 2: piece of cricket history. Time. Congratulations mate, and thanks for

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Speaker 2: taking the time for a chat. All the best for

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Speaker 2: the rest of the summer.

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Speaker 3: Thanks very much having me much appreciate.

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Speaker 2: No great to have you on Tom things. Indeed, Tom Bruce,

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Speaker 2: captain of the Central Stags and owner now of the

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Speaker 2: third highest score in first class cricket in New Zealand history,

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Speaker 2: three hundred and forty five of just four hundred and

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Speaker 2: one balls across nine and a half hours betting for

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Speaker 2: the Central Stags against the Auckland Aces at Eden Park's

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Speaker 2: Outer Oval during this week past.

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