Cricket: Catching, 'selfies' contests offer cash

Neil Hood

Central Districts Cricket are on a drive to boost the number of fans and make the men's one-day domestic campaign a fun-filled event from this weekend.

A catching contest and Facebook/Twitter "selfies" are among the carrots the major association is dangling to entice spectators to Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, for the first two rounds of the Ford Trophy competition.

The Devon Hotel CD Stags open their account and the Canterbury Kings at Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, on Saturday before hosting the Northern Districts Knights on Tuesday next week.

"Our sponsors Devon Hotel are offering prizes for catches during the games," says CD chief executive Neil Hood.

Winners, wearing either CD shirts or any other funny costume to denote the team's green colours, will have to make a full catch with one or both hands.

They will have to yell out the sponsors' name before the catch.

Hood says the winners will pocket $2000 and also top it off with a meal for four at the hotel's Marbles Restaurant in New Plymouth.

"It'll be a one-off catch in the game but if other people make catches after that then they will win the prize for four meals at the restaurant, too," he says.

It is intended to include other CD venues - Saxton Oval, Nelson, and Fitzherbert Park, Palmerston North - but that is subject to negotiations with the sponsors.

The social media competition offers a $1000 prize for those who post "the selfie of the season" on the CD Facebook or Stag Nation Twitter, especially geared towards Generation Y.

"If the people who post them put the names of everyone in a group in the caption then they can all share the prizemoney if they want to," he says.

ND Cricket had agreed to a BYO policy trial at Mt Maunganui in the New Year but have since done a U-turn.

Hood says CD weren't intending to emulate that because of issues pertaining to liquor licences, something police confirmed ND would have been in breach of.

CD have had no qualms about food although in Twenty20s, with Georgie Pie as sponsors, other fast-food franchise products may be an issue.