End of the road for Mark Boucher?
South African cricket selectors made the most experienced wicket keeper in the world - Mark Boucher - the scapegoat for their poor show in the Twenty20 World Cup in the West Indies. The ‘keeper who has been a part of the Proteas side for over a decade, has not been in the best of forms, and will be replaced in limited overs format by AB de Villiers who has kept wickets before as well.
Born 3rd December 1976, Mark Verdon Boucher made his Test debut on the tour of Pakistan after the regular keeper Dave Richardson got injured. Boucher made his Test debut at Shiekhupura in the drawn match, but even he didn’t know then that he would go onto create the record of most Test dismissals by a wicket-keeper. After Richardson’s retirement the same season, Boucher was made a regular member of the side and has been so since.
Boucher has been part of many match-winning performances for the South African side. He first overtook the former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy to become the most successful wicket keeper in Tests in Karachi in 2007 before losing the record to Australia’s Adam Gilchrist. He however regained the record a couple of years back during the series against Bangladesh, and has held onto it since.
He also became the first wicketkeeper ever in tests to have made 400 dismissals, a milestone he achieved during the match against Pakistan in Lahore in 2007. However, in one day internationals, he is number 2 on the all-time list, with Adam Gilchrist being on top. But his 421 dismissals is an achievement in itself considering he played less than 300 ODIs for that.
Boucher is no mug with the bat as well, since he once held the record for the highest score by a nightwatchman in Tests. But it was his majestic batting against Australia in the series winning victory at Johannesburg that he will always be remembered for. Chasing 435 to win the match and the series, Boucher came in after Gibbs amazing knock of 175 and hit the winning runs in what some believe to be the greatest one day international ever played.
He is also one of the few wicket keepers in the cricketing arena who have scored centuries in both forms of the game - tests and one dayers. His maiden century in ODIs came in 2006 against Zimbabwe, off just 44 balls, and he went onto score 147 runs in that fateful innings. His hundred is the second-fastest ODI century ever after Shahid Afridi‘s 37-ball ton against Sri Lanka in Nairobi.
So after all this, does he deserve an axe or a pat on the back from the South African selectors? If he is compared to his contemporaries, no team has such an experienced wicket keeper who has been part of the setup for so long. India’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni may be one exception but his captaincy is in question after India’s dismal show. Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara has recently used a specialist wicket keeper in tests to give time to his batting. Pakistan’s Kamran Akmal is only in the side because his replacement is not any good, England’s Matt Prior got dropped in favour of a better batsman, an experiment that succeeded while Brad Haddin only made a name for himself after Adam Gilchrist’s retirement. The rest of the sides don’t have wicket keepers that can be termed world class.
I think South Africa are committing a big mistake by dropping Boucher because he is still fit and his batting can still win matches. They should preserve AB de Villiers instead of making his batting suffer because that is what will happen to him in the series against West Indies starting today!
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