There have been very few South African cricketers that I have cared about at all.
Andre Nel, Pat Symcox and Brian McMillan were all favourites, but mostly because I assumed they were all insane, a character flaw I like in cricketers.
Of the cricketers that are less likely to kill you, Mark Boucher is the one South African who I admire the most.
I probably shouldn’t. Boucher’s record with the bat is poor for a modern keeper, and while he started brilliantly (even breaking a record of the great Darren Chuck Berry) with the gloves I should be disappointed that over the years his keeping has faded to its current levels.
He is just a tough son of a bitch.
There is a lot of posturing in South African cricket. Men who talk up how hard they are, stand tall, beat average cricketers, and then ultimately fail when the real test is put on them.
Boucher was there for when that was at its very worst, but the mud never stuck on him.
His toughness was not painted on before getting on the field, he just seemed tough. Yet he still had a face of a guy you could take home for your mother.
And that is not to say he didn’t do his share of fucking up, his D/L fuck up against Murali cost South Africa a chance of choking later in the 03 world cup.
There was a touch of old school about him. An inner mongrel that had to be admired. Every time he came in to bat his average would flash up on the screen and I’d be shocked at how low it was.
He was a throw back to when your wicket keeper was your son of a bitch who was in the team because he could be handy in a fight and he batted that way. He didn’t score runs, he earnt them. He had some pretty shots, but he also had slogs, bunts, scrappiness about him.
Early on in his career he was a keeper’s keeper. Over the years his footwork got sloppy, his hands less sure, and perhaps had he not been such a mentally strong team man he would have disappeared.
That he didn’t showed the value he brought to the camp. He was kept there to be the spine in an often spineless team.
I always thought he would make a good leader, but he seemed to relish the role of second in charge. Baulking at opportunities to take over that never made sense to me, but he knows his limitations better than most. And as Clint Eastwood once mumbled, “a man’s got to know his limitations”.
Now, and not for the first time, South Africa is using an alternative. Someone with way more talent than Boucher (at least in batting), but little of the fortitude. In the past this has meant little and eventually they go back to Boucher, not for his skill, but for every thing else he brings.
At 33, they might still go back to him, and he might even keep his test job for a little while longer. But this is the beginning of the end, Boucher is a strong man, but South African cricket needs to look into the future, and he is at the wrong age for that.
If you were leaving a pub and walking down a back alley late at night with Boucher beside you when you were surround by 4 heavy looking dudes with knives, you’d almost back yourself to survive it. He is gristle, and you just feel that while he may not help you beat the 4 dudes, he may be able to fight them off long enough to get away.
There may have been bigger, scarier looking and better players than Boucher in the South African team over the years, but he’d be the one for me in a grubby back alley knife fight.
