By Adrian Meredith
VICTORIA (TheSportsNext) July 13, 2012: Two high profile cricketers retired this week, Mark Boucher from South Africa and Brett Lee from Australia. So I wanted to write a bit about both at once.
Mark Boucher I first heard about around about the same time that Adam Gilchrist finally broke into the Australian test team, already quite late into his career, thanks to the Australian selection panel's insistence on continuing with Ian Healy long after he stopped being the best keeper. Yet Mark Boucher was in at a young age, as Adam Gilchrist should have been, and was straight away as good as Gilchrist.
I admired Boucher. Some have complained that he and Gilchrist weren't all that good. They certainly didn't have the glamour that some of the other wicket keepers have had. But they hold all of the all-time wicket keeping records. Boucher and Gilchrist were like Murali and Warnie. One or the other is the best of all time. It is just a question of which one you prefer.
Both started off as pure wicket keepers but due to the strength in the Australian team, by the time that Gilchrist finally played for Australia he had become a very good batsman as well. Boucher didn't have to do that and, while Boucher did okay (test average of over 30), he was far from making the side purely as a batsman.
Boucher ended up with easily the most dismissals in test history - far ahead of Gilchrist in second place. He also did it at the second fastest rate of any wicket keeper in history, in terms of numbers of dismissals per test, only just behind Adam Gilchrist.
Boucher holds records for most dismissals in an innings, most dismissals in a match and of course for doing it the most times.
While Gilchrist had to deal with waiting for far too long to get a shot, Boucher had to deal with South Africa's policy of hiring coloured people, which on many occasions led to him being dumped from the side, in spite of easily being the best player. He only missed perhaps 20 tests for this reason and perhaps the rest did him good but it was pretty disappointing just the same.
Boucher did miss out on the ODI keeping record, held by Gilchrist, but, as with everything else between the two, when Gilchrist is first, Boucher is second.
Like with Gilchrist, Boucher was very consistent behind the stumps. He wasn't the kind of keeper that was amazing one day and terrible the next. He was always excellent. He was regularly known as the best keeper in world cricket - the only times he was preferred, other than to Gilchrist, was by people from the country that their preferred keeper was from.
Boucher may not have had quite the hitting power or concentration of Gilchrist but he had some big hitting efforts. He had some big scores, especially in T20s and scored at a very quick rate.
Boucher sadly finished with an unlucky injury, while keeping wicket, when he was struck in the eye, an injury that prevented him from finishing with a landmark 150 tests. But perhaps it is best that he didn't pass the mark.
In my opinion, Boucher is the second best keeper of all time. I may not have been watching cricket since the start of cricket but I have seen and read about those before my time, and I do not think that any in the past come close to Boucher and Gilchrist and certainly none in the past 30 years have come close to touching either of them. Sadly for Boucher, he was marginally behind Gilchrist in keeping, and many people see Gilchrist's great batting efforts and think that the margin is great. But I don't. I see the keeping only and in that respect Boucher was a close 2nd. In terms of longevity, he was the top. Perhaps, had Gilchrist played for as long as Boucher did, Gilchrist would have been 2nd. Boucher was certainly a fantastic keeper.
Brett Lee was someone who dreamed of bowling in the death overs in an ODI international and it turned out that his career would be dominated by his abilities in the ODI game. While he started off amazingly well in first class cricket (starting off in an Australia A tour to USA) and then averaged some 16 after 6 tests, he ultimately became regularly the best, or else 2nd best, fast bowler in ODI cricket. While his test performances deteriorated such that he averaged over 30 in tests, in ODIs he was almost unbeatable.
Brett Lee was extremely fast, one of the fastest of all time, and battled with Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar to be the first to pass the 100 mph barrier - though inevitably both did. Perhaps Lee came second ultimately but as a bowler I think that most would agree that Lee came out on top.
Lee was surprisingly consistent and also had very few injuries for a super fast bowler.
But what made Lee stand out wasn't his express fast bowling or even the fact that on his day he was almost an all-rounder, once hitting a 6 out of the ground and into the car park in a test match at Lord's. It was more about how nice he was.
I met Brett Lee once. We didn't chat for long. I just got his autograph. He was there, at a domestic match, at a stage before he made his international comeback, and he was there in the cold and wet signing autographs for the entire batting innings, while his teammates spent at most 1 hour doing it, most only spending 10 minutes or so. Lee took the time to hug old ladies and pose with children. He was there for the people. He was all about making it a good time for everyone. He could have fobbed them off. He could have just ignored everyone. But he wanted to make it special.
Brett Lee had a hit single in India (though nothing in Australia) and also was apparently in a Bollywood movie as well. And this just adds to his character.
Lee eventually suffered from injuries later in his career and when his last injury struck, he retired. He probably thought that injuries were finally getting the better of him.
In recent times, Lee is probably only second behind Gilchrist in terms of his gentlemanly manner. In a time when the Australian team were known as ruthless and cruel, Brett Lee was known as a gentleman, a person out for the people that loved the game.
With both Boucher and Lee, I think that eventually they will both be known as legends of the game, as two of the best players ever to play the game. Neither will be known as the absolute best, both shadowed by others, but they nonetheless were very good and will be known for the excitement and respect that they brought to the game.
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