Close New Zealand 306 (Blundell 138, Conway 77, Robinson 4-54) and 63 for 5 (Broad 4-21) need another 331 runs to beat England 325 for 9 dec and 374 (Root 57, Brook 54, Foakes 51, Tickner 3-55)

Four wickets, four bowled, all four through the gate in the space of 27 balls. For a time it seemed inevitable that Broad was about to surge to a five-wicket haul in space of a single spell for the eighth time in his remarkable career. Instead New Zealand regrouped to a degree by the close, to limp to 63 for 5 but with their dim-and-distant target of 394 little more than a pipe-dream.

Ironically, the only New Zealander to get the better of Broad on a memorable third day was the same man whose bowling figures went down in history for a very different reason. After his comic antics with the bat on the second evening, Broad was quickly bombed out by a bouncer in Neil Wagner's second over of the day - a rare personal high spot for Wagner, who bore the brunt of England's subsequent batting onslaught with the eye-watering figures of 13-0-110-2, the second-most expensive economy rate in Test history.

Wagner's indefatigability has been a defining feature of New Zealand's World Test Championship-winning team - but this was a beasting like few others. After resuming with an overnight lead of 98, England clattered a remarkable 158 runs in the morning session, but leaked four wickets in the process - leading the team to apply a relative hand-brake throughout the afternoon, eventually landing their innings on an imposing 374, 20 minutes after the dinner break, like a glider pilot on a bombed-out runway. With the floodlights just kicking in as they did so, it meant New Zealand were faced with batting through the twilight, just as they had done on the first day. Broad made it his mission to ensure that they couldn't.

With the final ball of his second over, Broad got his angles spot on. Devon Conway, so steadfast in New Zealand's first innings, drove without due care as the ball kept shaping back in through his defences, rattling the top of middle to depart for 2. In the process, Broad put the seal on his ascent, with James Anderson, to the top of the partnership pile - it was their 1002nd wicket in 15 years as a Test-match pairing, surpassing the mighty Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.

This one, from over the wicket to the right-hander, was pitched on the perfect in-between length, zippy enough to cause even a batter of Williamson's class some indecision. Which way would it jag? Back into the stumps as it happened, bursting through a half-committed front foot to thump the top of off. Williamson's duck completed a bleakly fallow game in his first home match back in the ranks, and more or less confirmed his team's futile situation.

And of course he wasn't done yet - although there was a brief interlude to his monologue as Ollie Robinson, England's star of the first innings, served a reminder of his own excellence under the lights, with a zippy lifter from over the wicket, across the bows of the left-handed Henry Nicholls to kiss the edge through to Ben Foakes to make it 27 for 4.

One run and three overs later, Broad had his fourth, as Tom Blundell - New Zealand's first-innings centurion - played down the wrong line of another inexorable inducker to cue more pandemonium from England's gleeful fielders.

The main man, however, was Pope, who lit the fuse on England's innings, and Wagner's figures, with two mighty launches up and over fine leg for six. Two more sixes followed in Wagner's next over - one apiece for Pope and Root, both in the same direction - and when Pope eventually swung once too often to be caught down the leg side with his fifty beckoning, Brook took up the cudgels in unrelenting fashion, belting Wagner for four, four, four, six in an 18-run over that set him on course for a 37-ball fifty.

By the time Broad was done, however, such unworldly feats had been relegated to a footnote. This England team are making the extraordinary seem commonplace on a daily basis, but even by the standards of his mighty career, what followed under the lights was something special.