5 catches that were faster than the blink of an eye
There have been numerous brilliant catches throughout the years and while some have stood out for their acrobatics, others are simply memorable for being complete blinders with impossible reaction times. Jonty Rhodes,of course, revolutionized fielding in cricket but including him in such a list will take up most of the spots single-handedly. His stunning exploits including diving forward to take a skier to dismiss Brian Lara, his 100th catch with an unbelievable reaction time to send back Damien Martyn or the catch to dismiss Sachin Tendulkar in 1997 (a catch Rhodes himself has called the “best of his career) are too well-known and numerous to warrant a place on this list.
Here are 5 examples of astounding fielding efforts from players who attempted to take impossible catches and succeeded, shocking the batsmen and providing an incredible boost to their team-mates.
1) Rahul Dravid’s 200th catch
Before Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif burst onto the scene, for a while, besides momentary brilliance from Robin Singh, Rahul Dravid had been India’s most dependable fielder famous for stating that 'There are no easy catches in the slips' which was his preferred position.
Rahul Dravid brought up his 200th Test catch with an insanely quick reaction catch to dismiss Dale Steyn off Harbhajan Singh when the South African player prodded at a turning ball that hit the bat’s edge and brushed past MS Dhoni’s pads almost behind the keeper. With immediacy and experience, Dravid dived to his left and instinctively stretched out his left hand and latched onto the ball reflexively thus incredibly bringing up his catches tally to 200 and breaking out into a celebratory run.
However one of Dravid’s personal favourite catches is when he stuck out his right hand and the ball nestled into his hands off the bat of Damien Martyn from Sachin Tendulkar’s Bowling. It is not for nothing that Jammy was often considered to have the safest pair of hands in the cricketing world.