Mayu's catch inspires team at just the right time

Catches win matches.

From their earliest years that aphorism is drilled into the minds of young cricketers - iterated and reiterated as one of the indispensible truths of the game.

On Saturday, as old saws often are, it was proved literally true as Mayu Pasupati took a spectacular, acrobatic catch which turned the State Shield one-day final in favour of a battling Wellington team.

Pasupati, lithe and athletic, sprinted around the boundary behind square leg and launched himself full length at a ball hit sweetly from the bat of Aaron Redmond, from the bowling of Mark Jefferson. He was at one point parallel to the ground and five feet above it, fully airborne with one long arm outstretched.

The ball crashed into his open palm and stuck. Pasupati had made a magnificent catch, Redmond was out, Canterbury were 104/6 chasing 201 to win and the morale of the Wellington team had been hugely inflated.

Pasupati's team-mates ran from everywhere on the wide expanse of the Basin Reserve to celebrate the moment. Some came from almost 100 metres away at a full sprint and leapt onto the back of the delighted young player.

Catches win matches and incidents such as this one can also turn the tide in a close contest. It was one of two incidents during Canterbury's innings - the first the run out of Canterbury captain Gary Stead by David Sales - which altered the course of a match which was full of dramatic changes of fortune.

From the moment the catch was taken, Wellington were a team - visibly uplifted - who believed they were going to win. Canterbury were a team deflated. They went on to lose by 53 runs.

Pasupati is a young man of Sri Lankan descent, a very talented all-rounder. He bowls tricky medium pace and has an ability to gain good bounce, even on flat wickets, and to bowl a well-disguised slower ball.

He is also a hard-hitting batsman in the middle or lower middle order, valuable when quick runs are needed in any one-day game.

But he is, above all that, a fieldsman of quite remarkable swiftness and athleticism.

"Basically if I see the ball in the air I just go for it," Pasupati said.

"I just saw the replay of my catch and to be honest, I didn't realise I was actually off the ground.

"I saw the ball off the bat. I thought 'I've got to stop that'. I didn't think it was going to carry to me but it just kept coming.

"I just stuck my hand out. I felt the ball hit the middle of my palm and I looked down and there it was.

"Little things like that can mean a lot in the context of a close match. I think we were already starting to get on top when it happened but it just emphasised it."

However modest Pasupati might try to be, this match and Wellington's victory within may long be remembered for his magnificent catch. Those who were here - about 3500 - and those who saw it on TV will long remember this match in those terms.

Pasupati also played a vital role with the ball yesterday. Canterbury had begun to recover after the loss of Redmond and the further dismissal soon after of Cleighten Cornelius. They had been 115/7.

But Darron Reekers had formed a late partnership with Carl Anderson and things were ever so slowly turning in Canterbury's favour. They needed more than six runs per over with three wickets remaining but the burly Reekers, who had taken 24 runs from 34 balls, seemed capable of leading a dangerous rearguard action.

Wellington captain Matthew Bell had planned to bowl Matthew Walker and Paul Hitchcock in the crucial final overs but he needed one more over from one more bowler. He called on Pasupati who had conceded 16 runs from three overs bowling early in the innings.

Even Wellington coach Vaughn Johnson couldn't bear to look. Pasupati is a talented bowler and one capable of breaking dangerous partnerships but he tends to concede runs in doing so and the match was delicately poised. If he gave away too many runs, even in a single over, the game might have tipped further in Canterbury's favour.

But Pasupati had Reekers caught by Bell with the very first ball of his second spell - the first of the 44th over - and he bowled Anderson with a superb slower ball five balls later. Canterbury's resistance was at an end.