Catches win matches they say. Fielding is one of the major aspects of today’s cricket. Not only the players but also the cricket fanatics around the globe have been working in their fielding and the Cricketing boards have ensured there practice is put to good use by awarding them for the catches they take in the stands. So today in this article we will discuss five such moments where the audience won huge amounts of money by taking catches off the sixes hit by the batsman.
1 Lakh – The first incident we gonna speaks about happened during the 2018 edition of the Indian Premier League in a match between Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Banglore. The game of IPL has been commercialized and hefty amounts are being shelled out for players in the field but BCCI had even announced prize money’s for anyone in the audience who takes a one-handed catch. The occurrence sparked in the final over of Mumbai Indians’ innings. Rohit Sharma was batting on 84 runs off 49 when he lofted a full-toss outside the off-stump over the covers for a monstrous six when a fan in the sea of the audience caught a magnificent one-handed catch, which immediately came on the spotlight. The guy who was recognized as Faizal Khan received prize money of a whopping one lakh for his Herculean effort.
$250,000 – The second instance we gonna speak about happened during the opening match of the 2015 edition of the Cricket World Cup in a clash between New Zealand and Sri Lanka. The Tui promotion asks participants to purchase a 2015 Tui Cricket T-Shirt to be worn at Cricket World Cup matches. If they manage to cleanly catch a six with one hand in the crowd, they can cash in on the prize and a fan Sunjay Ganda had registered for the same. In the 31st over Ganda nabbed a stunning one-handed catch off a Kane Williamson straight drive for six, with the added challenge of a diving spectator attempting to steal the prize from under his nose. He was surrounded with high fives and cheers and a woman jokingly even asked him if he would marry her. Ganda made $250,000 .
£1000 – The third instance we gonna discuss happened to a boy who was watching Surrey play Welsh team, Glamorgan, at the Oval stadium in south London on a Tuesday evening. He was there for the match with his mom and little did he know what luck had in store for him. As soon as he pulled off the stunner there were cheers all around him and the replays of his catch started flashing on the two big screens on the ground but the boy humbly turned towards his mom and tightly hugged her to celebrate the moment. He received a lot of praise for his gesture in the stadium as well as online as his video went viral on many social media websites. Later after the match ended he was awarded a cash prize of £1000 to which he could react nothing more than an “Oh my god”!!!
NZ$50,000 – The fourth instance we gonna speak about is when a cricket fan won a hefty fee for taking a stunning catch in the crowd during the Tri-Series Twenty20 international match. Any fan at a New Zealand limited-overs matches that summer who caught a six one-handed while wearing a promotional T-shirt was rewarded with NZ$50,000 in prize money. With two balls left in New Zealand’s innings, Ross Taylor heaved the ball over the leg-side boundary and spectator Mitchell Grimstone lent over the bottom tier railings and caught the ball in his left hand amazingly. New Zealand board bad to introduce catch zones as there were reports saying people were “cannonballing into families with small children” in their attempts to win the money.
$93,000 – The last instance we gonna discuss happened when a 28-year-old Hamilton guy took a stunner at Seddon Park in the early stages of the one-day cricket international between New Zealand and the West Indies to win the big prize in the Tui Catch A Million competition. It was Michael Morton’s six-pack, as well as his outstanding hand-eye coordination, that made him $NZ100,000 ($93,000) richer on Wednesday. To register for it one has to buy a $30 Tui Tshirt before the match but Morton got him for free as he had bought six Tui bottles and the shopkeeper was glad to give him a free t-shirt. In a post-match interview, he added that he hadn’t warmed up well for the catch and also the six hit by Kieran Powell was traveling at a decent speed and it just got stuck in his hand but he had no regrets as he had almost become a millionaire in a matter of 5 minutes.
