He was already on the selection radar, but that extraordinary effort saw his stocks rise considerably.
Former team-mate Warren McSkimming had a front-row seat the day Wagner made history in an over, while former Wellington player Joe Smellie had one of the hot seats.
Nothing much had been happening. The pitch was dead, but abrasive. The ball got scuffed up and then suddenly starting reverse swinging — a lot.
Enter Wagner.
"You know what the best thing about that was?" McSkimming said.
"I didn’t want to bowl any more because I was near the end of my career and I had probably already bowled 25 overs that day.
"In my head I was thinking I’ll probably have to bowl a couple more before [the break] and my body was just aching and I was thinking about where my next Voltaren was coming from.
"But it took 15 minutes to bowl that over, pretty much, because he took five wickets and it was so good because I didn’t have to bowl again.
"As excited as I was about him taking five wickets, I was also stoked about that because I was, like, get me off this paddock.
"But those six balls he bowled were just extraordinary."
Yes they were. There is some grainy footage online, but basically the ball had started reversing and Wagner honed in on the stumps.
Opener Stewart Rhodes went first. He was caught in the gully.
He warned Smellie the ball was reversing but he was powerless to stop the ball crashing into his stumps.
He was still removing his kit, but heard the excitement as first Jeetan Patel and then Illi Tugaga perished the same way.
Mark Gillespie stoutly defended one ball, but was out the next.
"It is not my favourite cricket memory, but certainly a significant one," Smellie, who now works for the Otago Cricket Association as a development officer, said.
"I was part of a world record."
He had a solid plan for that first ball but, well, it was too good.
"I just remember the angle of it coming in and thinking this is going down [leg], but it is reversing and next thing I know my stumps have been destroyed.
"And, to be honest, it still comes up in conversation some times. Someone will mention that they watched that YouTube clip."
For the record, Otago went on to win by an innings and 138 runs, while Wagner made his test debut the following year and has gone on to be one of the Black Caps’ most successful bowlers.
