“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.

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.

“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.”