Mark Boucher

South Africa|Wicketkeeper Batter
Mark Boucher
INTL CAREER: 1997 - 2012
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Full Name

Mark Verdon Boucher

Born

December 03, 1976, East London, Cape Province

Age

47y 107d

Batting Style

Right hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Medium

Fielding Position

Wicketkeeper

Playing Role

Wicketkeeper Batter

A man to go to war with, but never against, Mark Boucher packed all the archetypal attributes of the South African cricketer into his short, stocky frame. He was relentlessly competitive, invariably aggressive, and as hard and uncompromising as the new ball.

Boucher's start in international cricket was uncertain. His relative lack of pure wicketkeeping skill and ability was exposed on South Africa's 1998 tour to England, when he was repeatedly undone by the swing of the ball after it had pitched. However, Boucher had no peer for temperament, guts and determination, and he duly fashioned himself into one of the finest keepers in the game with endless hours of practice and drills.

As a batter he lived for the big moment, the quick 30 or 40 his team needed to win a match, or the session that had to be spent at the crease to ensure a draw. His most memorable innings was probably the scintillating unbeaten 50 he scored to complete South Africa's surge to a series-clinching target of 435 off the penultimate ball of a one-day international against Australia in Johannesburg in March 2006.

Boucher played 75 consecutive Tests before the suits thought he needed to be brought down a peg or two and dropped him for the tour to India in 2004. His reality duly checked, he returned to the national team as the ultimate man for the trenches. In the autumn of his career, his renewed commitment to his conditioning earned him extra years at the top, and helped him become the first wicketkeeper to take 500 catches in Test cricket.

For a man who loomed so large in cricket, Boucher started diminutively. He was invariably smaller and younger than anyone else in the age-group provincial teams he played in. But the neon intensity in his eyes in the otherwise banal team photographs told of a kid who meant business. Boucher was a junior South African squash champion, and famously once played a national final with a racquet arm that had not long before emerged from a plaster cast. He lost, but in five games.

After an international career that lasted almost 15 years, the end was desperately unfortunate: Boucher was forced to announce his retirement after being hit in the eye by a bail in a warm-up game on the tour to England in 2012. He finished with 998 international dismissals as a wicketkeeper, including 555 in 147 Tests, the all-time record.

He then turned to coaching, taking over at Titans in 2016 and leading them to five domestic titles. In 2019 he was appointed head coach of the South Africa national side, and in 2022, head coach of Mumbai Indians in the IPL.

Mark Boucher Career Stats

Batting & Fielding

FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAveBFSR100s50s4s6sCtSt
Tests14720624551512530.301100550.115356562053223
ODIs295221574686147*28.57552884.761263568340322
T20Is2521626836*17.8627597.4500222181
FC21230642880313433.34--1053--71237
List A365287706218147*28.65--235--48431
T20s907627137860*28.121194115.4104103394816

Bowling

FormatMatInnsBallsRunsWktsBBIBBMAveEconSR4w5w10w
Tests14718611/61/66.004.508.0000
ODIs295------------
T20Is25------------
FC212-322811/6-28.005.2532.0-00
List A365-000-----000
T20s90------------
Mark Verdon Boucher

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Test
ODI
T20I

Recent Matches of Mark Boucher

MatchBatWktDateGroundFormat
Sth Africans vs Somerset--2c/0s & 0c/0s09-Jul-2012TauntonOTHER
Int XI vs Asian XI61c/0s12-May-2012TorontoOTHERT20
South Africa vs New Zealand463c/0s & 1c/0s23-Mar-2012WellingtonTest # 2037
South Africa vs New Zealand242c/0s & 3c/0s15-Mar-2012HamiltonTest # 2036
South Africa vs New Zealand4 & 34*2c/0s & 0c/0s07-Mar-2012DunedinTest # 2035

Photos of Mark Boucher

Head coach Mark Boucher and captain Hardik Pandya in the MI team room
Captain Hardik Pandya and head coach Mark Boucher at Mumbai Indians' pre-season press conference
Dewald Brevis and Tilak Varma have a chat with Mark Boucher
Hardik Pandya in discussions with Mark Boucher
The Mumbai Indians table at the IPL 2024 auction
Mark Boucher and Rohit Sharma strike a conversation at a pre-game session