There exists in radio archives a sublime piece of Test match commentary in which John Parker recalls, with lascivious delight, the manner in which he achieved his only wicket in Test cricket - the bastard product of a non-bowler and wayward fieldsman - and the ill-starred Indian batsman who lives with the ignominy of having been his victim.

Northern Districts all-rounder Grant Bradburn, who made his third first-class century against Wellington at the Basin Reserve today in his 107th match for Northern, might have heightened sympathy for that poor, maligned Indian after being out for 104 to a similarly incongruous combination.

Bradburn, whose century was the best part of the final day of the Trophy season in Wellington and gave the day gravity as the match meandered towards a draw and early stumps, was the last man out just before tea - caught by Chris Nevin from the bowling of Richard Jones.

In normal circumstances there would be no humiliation in being caught by Nevin because the Wellington wicket-keeper, a former international, has 41 dismissals behind the stumps this season - all catches - and that tally equals the record for a New Zealand domestic season twice achieved by another Wellingtonian, Ervin McSweeney.

But it has to be pointed out that at the time he took the catch, Nevin was not behind the stumps but was fielding at midwicket, having given up the pads and gloves first to the tall medium-pacer Andrew Penn - who looked like a man who had put on someone else's clothes - and then to the left-arm spinner Mark Jefferson.

This was all part of the amusing last hour of the match in which Wellington used 10 bowlers and three wicket-keepers and generally, for the first time, yahooed in celebration of their Trophy victory.

Now, it might still pass as a reasonable thing that Bradburn was caught by Nevin, who patiently stationed himself under the batsman's skied hook and took the catch in copybook fashion in front of his chest. But to live forever as the man who gave Richard Jones his first and probably his only first-class wicket is something that might wake Bradburn up at night for years to come.

Jones has certainly had a wonderful season in Wellington - he has three centuries and more than 700 runs to his credit and he left the field today to find he had been selected for New Zealand 'A' to play Pakistan. He has truly reinvented himself this season, after starting his first-class career in Auckland and achieving no such spectacular success.

But it is as a bowler that Jones has blossomed this season and there is nothing in any record book to suggest he has ever had any success with the ball. The ball he bowled to Bradburn today and which gave him his first first-class wicket was also his first at first-class level.

It would test the literary powers of Neville Cardus to describe the delivery and it is an even harder task to determine what style of bowler Jones actually is, because the ball made no contact with the pitch at any stage. It is only safe to say he is a right-armer. The rest, we leave to conjecture.

Jones first marked out his run in the manner of a triple jumper, with a long hop, step and a jump. He limbered up windmill fashion and he danced to the wicket in an elegant and high-stepping gait which was reminiscent of the Christmas carol's five lords a leaping.

To say that Bradburn was startled by the result is to damn with faint praise Jones' power to confuse. The cricket textbook offers few suggestions to deal with a ball bowled over the wicket at earlobe height and which travels wicket to wicket in a ballistic parabola similar to a NASA missile test.

Bradburn swatted at the ball near his left shoulder as if it were an irritating gnat. He succeeded only in sparring the ball in a slow and graceful arc to the serenely grinning Nevin 30 metres from the bat on the leg side.

So ended the day and the Wellington Trophy season. Northern were 247/6, Bradburn out for 104 after 231 minutes at the crease and Joseph Yovich not out 16.

During the course of the last hour Wellington had used as bowlers its captain Matthew Bell, whose single over cost eight runs - two fours which took Bradburn from 92 to 96 and 96 to 100; Stephen Mather, who is a capable Shell Cup medium pacer but found a new forte bowling off breaks; Selwyn Blackmore, who should have had Yovich's wicket but lost the chance when Jefferson put down a catch behind the stumps. Only Grant Donaldson did not bowl and he would have done so had his Stokes Valley team-mate, Jones, not ended the day and the season with Wellington's best bowling average.

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