[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wq5MHIRWqQ&w=590&h=430]
OK, if you’ve read any of these posts before you get the feeling I like the noble ancient game of cricket. Well, it’s summer here and the local team has just finished top of the league and has a home semi final tomorrow. But anyway… an ex student of mine (now all grown up in India, where they worship cricketers) emailed me a link to a video of a T20 game played in New Zealand last Friday.
In what was otherwise a nondescript game at the end of the world played in front of a few thousand lazing spectators, suddenly, a 19 year old substitute fielder (he wasn’t even on the team, he was there to help field if someone was injured) leapt like a springing porpoise and makes perhaps the most miraculous catch of all time. The video shoots around the world, and is posted on Youtube, and in the Guardian newspaper in Britain (literally, the other side of the world). Thence my ex student in India somehow sees it and emails it to me. I share it on my Facebook page and here I am blogging about it to you.
None (NONE) of this would have been possible 15 years ago, and little of it 5 years ago. If this catch had been taken back then, very few people would have seen the amazing exploits of Bevan Small, flying over the boundary rope and in one smack stopping the ball travelling for six (a maximum hit, equivalent to a baseball home run) knocking it back for another fielder to complete the catch. Because he throws it back before he lands over the rope and the other guy then catches it, that’s out! The umpires deliberate, we get to see copious replays and marvel at the feat.
And somehow, thanks to the power of internet media, we all get to see something quite inspiring. As do 1.5 million others (the number of views in a week it’s already had on Youtube).
