Mark Boucher - a commoner behind the stumps

Disclaimer: I won’t go ranting about his childhood, his records or what he used to eat when he was a 12 year old—a Cricinfo check is enough for that.

To say that ‘words cannot do justice to Mark Verdon Boucher’ would be an insult, firstly to the endless number of writers who use the phrase continuously for any celebrity piece and secondly to Boucher himself. The reason for me saying that is primarily because he was not that brilliant a player for whom words would fall short. He was no Viv Richards, he was no Jacques Kallis, he was simply Mark Boucher; yet the announcement of his retirement has somewhere left a space within us, a feeling of an unexplained gloom. Maybe it was because he touched a chord with us — the basic chord of human survival and while at it showing how to bring out the best possible results.

Deep down, a lot of us connected with Mark Boucher not only because of his self-less attitude but also because of the fact that he epitomised a commoner in every possible manner. He was not a prodigy, he lacked talent substantially for what he eventually achieved, yet he made up for those absentees with his practice, perseverance, will, dedication and most importantly hard work.He knitted them all in a strenuous manner and gave us a hope that even if we are mundane and unattractive in our mannerisms; our efforts may lead us to our greatest glories. And that indeed was the beauty of Mark Boucher, he didn’t fit into the sporting clichés of amazing players yet he somewhere had an identity of his own. In his first tour to England, he was conditioned to criticism because of his inability to keep his body in line with the swinging deliveries but 15 years down the line with 999 international dismissals in his kitty he has quietened all his critics.

Not even an ardent cricket fan would pay to watch Boucher play and do 540 squats in a day but if ever a situation came of South Africa needing to play out the last 10 overs of the day with four wickets in hand, Mark Boucher would be every man’s safe bet. There is also a feeling amongst the cricket purists that with the departure of Boucher, we are gradually counting down the last of the ‘gentleman’ generation and it is indeed shocking (as well as repulsive) that only a very few of his breed remain. When he came in, the cricketing conventions ordered for a specialist keeper who should know how to bat. Very soon with the emergence of Gilchrist, the scenario changed to exactly the opposite and even though Boucher was highly susceptible to the change in the order, he never had a prolonged poor patch with his bat to get the axe. Here and there, he would chip in with his 30s and 40s and sometimes an occasional boundary to chase down 435 odd runs also helped his cause.

In his quintessential manner, Mark Boucher was present each and every time anything significant happened in the South African cricketing history. When Hansie Cronje was thrown out, he was one of the few ‘seniors’ to guide a young Graeme Smith and a South African team amidst the dark times; a job which he performed creditably and the result of which is reaped by the current South African team. He was there during South Africa’s heart breaking loss in the 1999 World Cup; he was on strike during their elimination in the 2003 edition, he was the man scoring the winning runs off the penultimate ball in the epic Johannesburg run chase. He was there every time, he contributed every time; it is just that we never noticed him in that manner. He was a character that cricket needed and it is because of players like him that the game manages to carry forward its purity and integrity.

Just in the manner Mark Boucher lived his career; all the glories which would have most definitely brought him to the spotlight never eventually happened for him. If he was to complete the England test series, he would have achieved his 150^th test cap (that too at Lord’s); playing through the series also would have most definitely made him the first wicketkeeper to have 1000 international dismissals but then all this was not supposed to happen. Mark Boucher was never destined for such greatness, even at the end of his career, he radiated the feeling that he was after all a commoner like us and that everything in life need not be perfectly perfect. He came, he saw but he never conquered, he only achieved and that is what separated Mark Boucher from the rest.

P.S: Even though I set out to write a lot more on him than I eventually have, I somehow feel that I may not be doing justice to the man. And although I hate to admit the fact that I am just an average writer, I have no other option but to say ‘words simply cannot do justice to Mark Verdon Boucher’.

Take care, Mark.