Hamilton, March 8:

Ryan Sidebottom captured a hat-trick in a five-wicket haul to break New Zealand’s grip on the

first cricket Test here on Saturday and to bowl England within reach of an unlikely victory.

The long-haired Sidebottom dismissed Stephen Fleming, Brendon McCullum and Jacob Oram with successive balls to become the 34th bowler and 11th Englishman to complete a hat-trick in Tests.

New Zealand, in an apparently impregnable position after leading by 122 runs on the first innings on the fourth day, slumped from 109-2 to 115-6 in three overs as Sidebottom and Panesar stripped the Kiwi middle order.

Sidebottom was helped by superb catching, particularly by Alastair Cook who claimed two of his hat-trick victims and has five catches in the match to date. He was helped also by inept batting by the New Zealanders who threw away seven wickets between tea and stumps to meekly surrender the advantage they held in the match from the first day on Wednesday.

New Zealand dismissed England for 348 in reply to their first innings of 470 to establish an useful first innings lead and, with fewer than five sessions of the match remaining, seemed inoculated against defeat.

The Kiwis lost opener Matthew Bell to the third ball of the second innings but recovered to 55-1 by tea and entered the last session determined to hit themselves into a position to declare on Sunday, leaving a day to bowl out England for a 1-0 series lead.

At the expense of a more cautious approach, batsman after batsmen threw away his wicket until New Zealand found themselves 147-8 at stumps, only 269 ahead with all of the specialist batsmen dismissed.

Sidebottom cut a broad swathe through the New Zealand top order and justified the cult following which has seen English supporters in long, curly wigs — imitating the Yorkshire left-armer — on the bank at Seddon Park on each day of the match.

He became the first Englishman and only the second player in 78 years to capture a Test hat-trick in New Zealand, since Maurice Allom achieved the feat in New Zealand’s first Test match in 1930.