Time to ban catching sideshow

Of course you will have eyes for only one thing and it's not your wife, not the little girl in the pink shirt, not the baby in a pushchair. When men are prepared to spill beer for the cause, you know it's serious.

Drop the Tui Catch-A-Million competition, or Black Caps super six-hitter Colin Munro, before someone gets seriously hurt.

Someone has already been hurt, so it’s just the seriously bit that looks inevitable while the competition-Colin combo exists.

NZ Cricket on Thursday announced it was reviewing the competition due to safety concerns.

In case you’ve missed it, fans who catch a six one-handed during any of the 23 one-day day internationals or Twenty20 matches this summer while wearing the new orange Tui T-shirt will win $50,000.

Others in the crowd will be rewarded with knees and elbows to the head, their bruising and bashings eased only by an extra coating of spilt beer as they disappear under a tsunami of Tui shirts.

At the first Twenty20 against the West Indies, a fan in Nelson was left with ringing ears and an ambulance visit, when a Munro six was diverted onto his head by the clutching hand of an orange-shirted crowd member.

At Mt Maunganui last Wednesday, there was more Munro carnage as he created Tui terror 10 times in his recordbreaking century.

A young girl in a pink shirt was left in tears when a lunging orange-shirted man about four times her size fell on her chasing the six that brought up Munro’s 50.

Consecutive sixes that headed Munro into the 70s brought about more rampaging orange elephants, coming in all directions, over, across and into hapless fans in deck chairs.

But survivors and the wounded, your beef is not with carrot-coloured chilled beer cricket catchers, it’s with whoever allowed this mayhem to occur.

Bad boys, bad boys what ya gonna do, what you gonna do when the ball comes soaring toward you, when catching it with one hand is worth more than the average Kiwi’s annual salary?

Of course you will have eyes for only one thing and it’s not your wife, not the little girl in the pink shirt, not the baby in a pushchair.

When men are prepared to spill beer for the cause, you know it’s serious.

Tui, this is a foolish and dangerous idea. It’s more awful than your sugary East India Pale Ale.

And New Zealand Cricket, you’ve upped the excitement level with a spectator sideshow, but is this what you want, what you really, really, want?

Is it crowd squishing Oranges you want or unbruised good Apples?

Do you want families out with their beach chairs, picnic blankets and chilly bins, looking to chill out on the bank.

Well, you risk driving those people away.

Dropping Colin Munro is not my only idea.

How about catch zones? Put all the oranges in areas where sixes are most likely to be hit. Ban them from family areas.

Or just ignore that advice and order up more medical staff and ambulances.

Because you’ve set up an injury zone and you’d better hope health and safety don’t notice.