An unfortunate end to Mark Boucher’s career

For years and years we have seen the brave Mark Boucher. Mark Boucher is undisputedly the best player in the South African national cricket team. He has served his nation for many years with great honesty and passion. However, a recent incident has brought down curtains on a glamorous career. The sad thing is that his career came to a crashing end, totally out of the blue.

Mark Boucher hurt his eye in one of the matches he was playing against Somerset. As usual he was doing his duty behind the stumps. This is when a ball hit his eye and there was a severe injury. The injury was so serious that he had to be operated upon. The operation lasted for three hours.

The unfortunate turn of events left him stranded at 999 international dismissals. Now, why we are saying that he remains stranded there is because Mark Boucher has announced his retirement from international cricket. This means there is still a chance for someone – a wicketkeeper, to be a part of 1000 international dismissals.

In his 467 international matches of all forms, he has 952 catches and 46 stumpings in all. In 147 Test matches, he has 555 dismissals – 532 catches and 23 stumpings. He is the only SA wicketkeeper to have five Test hundreds – the most by a South African.

In Test dismissals, Adam Gilchrist of Australia is next to him with 905 dismissals. However, in ODI dismissals, Adam Gilchrist is ahead of him. Boucher has 424 dismissals, while Adam Gilchrist has 472.
When Mark Boucher got injured, he was not wearing a helmet and the ball hit directly in his eye. This has again underlined the need for a wicketkeeper to have safety gear like a helmet. Former Indian wicketkeeper Saba Karim was such a victim of an eye injury during one of the Asia Cup matches.