A quintet of screamers
Where does Trent Boult's stunning catch stack up in the annals of ripper catches by New Zealanders?
This one had cricket nerds around the world reaching for - and clicking for - the Laws of Cricket as McCullum went on his own little predictive path for a Dravid paddle sweep through leg slip. It was as good a piece of anticipation as you'll ever see, with the ball crashing into his belly button and Dravid wandering off in bewildered fashion. India were about 400 ahead at the time so there were no on-field tantrums or post-match political ramifications.
As Soft Cell's "Tainted Love", 1980s synth pop, blares out annoyingly across the bitterly cold Wellington afternoon, Shane Bond continued to inflict a merciless ten-wicket hiding on Australia at Westpac Stadium. His third of five wickets on the day, this one was a caught and bowled to send belligerent middle-order batsman White back to the dressing room. It was about three millimetres above being a knuckle-dragger, low to Bond's right, and had umpire Billy Bowden cowering with fear behind the stumps at the bowler's end.
It's one thing for a sinewy whippet like Trent Boult to panther around in the covers, but it is entirely another to see a chunky bundle of ferocity like Mark Greatbatch hurl himself around and pull in a stunning catch. Long before Greatbatch was parked at slip for New Zealand and reinventing the art of pinch-hitting at the top of the order, he could be found at square leg or point, patrolling the circle and chipping away with his Auckland Grammar verbal diarrhoea. I'll never forget seeing his catch to dismiss mountaineer-cum-wicketkeeper Bruce French. This was my international cricket-watching debut, and I was tucked up in the North Stand with Uncle Kelvin, drinking Milo and eating chicken chips. All 100kgs of Greatbatch were horizontal, full length and outstretched as he hauled in French's shot with one hand, dropped it, and then regathered it smooth as silk before he hit the ground. It was unreal. And I was addicted to watching cricket for life.
For 16 years, Greatbatch's low-profile double-catch effort was the best in my living memory. But that all changed in 2004. On a stunningly sunny Melbourne day, our beige platoon traipsed to Docklands and into the weird, sunscreen-free, night-like world of the indoor stadium. We ended up soaking up quite a bit of Jim Beam and one of New Zealand's best-ever ODI wins against the Aussies.
Paul Ford is a co-founder of the Beige Brigade. He tweets here