VIDEO | ‘Blinded’ Cameron White overcomes crazy Alex Carey dive to take stunning reflex catch

12/21/2019

We’ve seen cricketers take blinders in the past, but today, Strikers’ Cameron White took the term to a whole new level. After an Alex Carey dive completely rendered him sightless, White, despite having no idea where the ball was, pulled off a ridiculous reflex catch to send Khawaja packing.

There is something about this Adelaide Strikers team and taking stunning catches, isn’t it? Last year, it was the tag-team of Ben Laughlin and Jake Weatherald that brought the whole cricketing world to a standstill with their stunning effort in the boundary line and well, this year, we might just have seen the catch of the season already, thanks to Cameron White.

Yes, White took a ‘blinder’ today and no, he wasn’t blinded by the smoke in the air. Defending a par score of 161 on a good Canberra wicket, the onus was on the Adelaide Strikers new-ball bowlers to make some early inroads and peg back the chasing team. With Khawaja - who was coming on the back of a match-winning 66 in his last match - on strike, skipper Alex Carey threw the ball to his go-to man Billy Stanlake in search of an early breakthrough.

And Big Billy answered his captain’s call on the very second delivery of the Thunder innings. As a fired-up Stanlake came steaming in, in search of a breakthrough, with the ball pitching around the sixth stump and swinging away, Khawaja went for an extravagant drive. But to the batsman’s dismay, all he could manage was to find an outside edge, and the ball flew to the keeper at the rate of knots.

Due to the southpaw edging the delivery well outside off stump and with the ball swerving further away, wicket-keeper Carey had to put a full-stretch dive to his left to get to the ball. However, there was way too much pace on the delivery, meaning all Carey could manage was get his fingertips to it, with the ball swishing past him in no time.

But the real fun was about to begin. Cameron White, who was standing at first slip completely blinded by Carey, instinctively moved towards the ball in a desperate attempt to get hold it. And as he moved towards it, the ball deflected off Carey’s fingertips, hit the arm of White and hung in the air, waiting to be caught. And White, who had no idea what was happening all this time, somehow managed to catch the ball in the second attempt as the ball bobbed up off his arm.

Eventually, he pulled off an outrageous reflex catch which neither he nor his skipper Carey could believe, sending the whole Strikers team into a frenzy. Cameron White did take a blinder, indeed. Literally.