$50,000 catch: flashback to failure yields success

It looks  easy on replay: lean forward, stick your hand out, catch the cricket ball.

But just before Christmas, Dunedin club cricketer Craig Dougherty had watched an aerial shot spiral out towards him, had got both hands to it ... and dropped an absolute sitter at Bayfield Park.

This wasn’t Bayfield Park.

This was the University Oval, 4533 people were watching, the northeasterly wind was howling and, in the first over of a one-day international against Pakistan, New Zealand batsman Martin Guptill had just smashed a ball  in Mr Dougherty’s direction.

Mr Dougherty was in the "Catch Zone" — where making a successful one-handed catch while wearing the sponsor’s shirt would earn the lucky fielder in the crowd $50,000.

At the crucial moment, with the money speeding towards him, Mr Dougherty had a flashback to his mishap in the Albion shirt a few weeks previously.

Luckily, Mr Dougherty’s right hand did not let him down.

"I’ve still been copping it from them today about it ... but that one today would be the best catch I’ve ever taken, definitely.

"I saw it come off the bat and I thought ‘that’s not going to carry’, then I thought ‘no, that is going to carry — I’d better put my hand out’, and it stuck, to my surprise ... I didn’t actually think about the $50,000 until it was in my hand."

Mr Dougherty is the first person this summer to land a catch in the Tui Brewery-sponsored competition.

The promotion has attracted controversy, six hopeful catchers scattering other spectators while chasing the money.

Mr Dougherty, by comparison, never moved from where he was about to make himself comfortable on the embankment.

Apart from shouting a few beers, he had no immediate plans on how to spend his winnings, Mr Dougherty said.

Ironically, he hadn’t  even planned to go to Saturday’s game — won convincingly by New Zealand.

"My cousins from Australia are over and they talked me into it.

"I was thinking about it but then thought ‘maybe not — I might do some work around the house this weekend instead’, but then decided seeing as they were only here till Sunday I had better go with them."

New Zealand Cricket spokesman Callum Elder said the event had a "fantastic atmosphere".

Despite having a smaller crowd capacity than some, it was "really pleasing to see the first game of the summer in Dunedin sold out so quickly".