Mark Boucher, the South Africa wicketkeeper, reached yet another landmark during the fourth day of the second Test against West Indies in St Kitts, notching up his 500th dismissal. An edge from Ravi Rampaul off Morne Morkel was snapped up by Boucher to mark the historic moment, as he became the first wicketkeeper to get there.
Boucher is the most successful Test wicketkeeper till date, with 479 catches and 21 stumpings, and is now the only wicketkeeper to have scored in excess of 5000 runs and effected 500 dismissals. It will be a while before the record is broken, as the next 13 members on the list of most successful wicketkeepers have all retired. Kamran Akmal, with 181 dismissals to his name, is 14th.
Boucher had been excluded from the initial few games on this tour, with AB de Villiers preferred as the wicket-keeper batsman and the milestone, one of the few highlights of what has so far been a dull Test, came as welcome relief. "I have kept wicket to some fantastic bowlers and also on wickets that at times have been friendly to bowlers," Boucher said. "It has been a hard month for me and it is nice for me to have something to smile about.
"Once you have played international cricket for as long as I have done you tend to look back on what you have done and also to look to the future. I would like to carry on playing Test cricket for a while now. I also have goals on the one-day front and I will keep working on my game to become a better cricketer both for myself and for South Africa."
Earlier in the game, Jacques Kallis reached 11,000 runs in Tests on his way to his 35th Test century. He remains the to have scored more than 10,000 runs and grab 200 or more wickets, and is currently in the list of highest run-getters in the format.
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