A player moves his hands backwards while catching a fast ball because a fast moving ball has a large momentum and in stopping this ball, its momentum has to be reduced to zero. Now, when a cricket player moves back his hands on catching the fast ball, then the time taken to reduce the momentum of the ball is increased. So, the rate of change of momentum of ball is decreased and hence a small force is exerted on the hands of the player and the hands of the player do not get hurt.