Spectacular catches are becoming a little more common in today’s world with the amount of cricket being played. From SA20 to BBL to ILT20 (to start soon) and International cricket, there is just so much happening at the same time. Faf du Plessis displayed unbelievable athleticism at 39 years of age in SA20 when he took a mind-blowing one-handed catch during the Joburg Super Kings and MI Cape Town clash. We have witnessed another mind-boggling effort during the T20 Super Smash.
In a hard-to-believe incident on the field during the Wellington vs Central Districts match, Troy Johnson and Wellington captain Nick Kelly combined to take a mind-boggling relay catch at the boundary rope straight down the ground. The catch took place during the final over of the powerplay of the second innings. From the batter to the bowler, to the two fielders – everyone involved was from New Zealand.
New Zealand’s Will Young hit a fuller ball from Michael Snedden straight down the ground as he looked to break free in the final over of the powerplay. The ball sailed in the air and looked to reach the boundary easily with no one deep at long-on or long-off. But Johnson had his eyes set on the ball and he ran in from mid-on all the way to the boundary rope straight behind before stretching with his hands to get under the ball. He grabbed the ball, dived and then was probably centimetres away from the boundary rope when he relayed the ball behind with a jump as Kelly, well aware of the heroic efforts, grabbed the ball.
The effort has left social media shocked with many getting forced to think whether this is the best-ever relay catch in the history of cricket. “That’s a catch and a half! Is this the best relay catch you have seen?” a user wrote on X. “This may or may not be the best catch ever. That’s subjective. But this is the 1st time ever a player has jumped over the rope to make a relay catch happen while he was sliding on the ground. He wasn’t even on his feet when he did that. Unbelievable stuff!” another one wrote. Here is how X reacted:
https://twitter.com/RiserTweex/status/1746125667971039634
The catch ended Young’s short stay at the crease as he was dismissed for 7 off 11 balls. The dismissal, however, did not derail the Central Districts’ chase. They were asked to hunt down 148 by Wellington and the Tom Bruce-led side did so with six wickets and 19 balls in hand. Jack Boyle scored a fifty while Doug Bracewell played an unbeaten 11-ball 30-run knock.