Boucher is the new Titans head coach

Now Mark Boucher has been appointed as coach of the Titans, winner of all three domestic titles the past two seasons.

He will replace the successful Rob Walter, who recently left the Titans to join the Otago Volts as head coach.

Boucher’s Test career was terminated by default rather than by design as he was hit in the eye by a bail in a warm-up game on the tour to England in 2012.

As a wicketkeeper he finished with a world-class record of 532 catches and 23 stumpings and established a career as one of the finest glove-men in the recent history of the game.

Boucher loved the scrap, the heat of the battle. He lived for the big moments of the game. When the chips were down, Boucher was at his best.

It was evident in the second Test of his career when he established a world-record 195-run partnership for the ninth wicket with Pat Symcox at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium. He guided Symmo to his only Test century in that Valentine’s Test in 1998.

Two years later, Boucher slammed an unbeaten 27 off 32 balls at the Wankhede Stadium, hammering six fours when Anil Kumble was threatening, and powered South Africa to a four-wicket win.

“He is a real street fighter,” announced the skipper, Hansie Cronjé, almost overawed by Boucher’s mere temerity to sweep Kumble for four boundaries during his adventurous counter-offensive.

Boucher didn’t mind being inserted as night-watchman. In fact, he scored two centuries in this role. One was his career-best Test score of 125 against Zimbabwe. The other was a mature century against England at Kingsmead in Durban in 1999.

He was a dangerous lower-order batsman, and also stuck around when everything was on the line.

A beautiful example of this characteristic was in the Edgbaston Test in 2008.

He produced a feisty unbeaten 45 in an undefeated 112-run partnership for the sixth wicket with Graeme Smith, who hammered one of the finest centuries in a fourth innings in the history of the game to propel South Africa to a five-wicket win.

South Africa secured their first series-win on England soil since 1965, thanks partially to that epic stand in which Boucher was calmness and steel personified.

Boucher was orthodox as a batsman, and could hold his own against any fast-bowling attack, striking 5 515 test runs at an average of 30.30.

He was a free-flowing batsman who could play shots all around the park, and he didn’t mind the hostile chin music. In fact, he would regularly hook or pull dismissively for four.

In ODIs, Boucher was superb down the lower order, striking 4686 runs at an average of 28.57, with one century and 26 half-centuries.

Perhaps his finest moment in this format came in the so-called 434-match at the Wanderers when he drove Brett Lee to the long-on boundary to secure 438 for nine against Australia and a series-win against Australia in March 2006 with one legal delivery to spare.

Boucher finished with 998 international dismissals as a wicketkeeper.

As a young player at Selborne College, he represented South Africa in junior squash.

Boucher lost the lens, the iris and the pupil of his left eye in that freak accident that terminated his cricketing career in 2012.

Since then, he has launched a conservation project in conjunction with South African Breweries, which aims to raise funds to register rhinos on a national DNA database so that they can be tracked down if poached.

“I am stoked by the opportunity to get back into domestic cricket. Upon my retirement, I realised I would not be able to play the game any longer, but to be involved in the capacity as coach of a domestic power house like the Multiply Titans is thrilling,” said Boucher.

“I would like to fully utilise the opportunity to develop the skills of the Titans squad even more. Rob has left behind an enormous legacy, and it willd be big boots to fill.

“But my challenge is to leave my own footprint and to make a seamless transition in association with a mature and enormously determined group of stars,” he added.

“We are privileged to gain the experience and the astute leadership and knowledge of one of the legends of South Africa as our senior coach,” said Jacques Faul, chief executive of the Multiply Titans.

“We believe it is the perfect fit. We naturally play an explosive brand of cricket. Boucher never shirked his responsibilities in the eye of the storm. He believed that the best form of defence was to attack. And he did so on countless occasions when the circumstances demanded defiance,” said Faul.

“He will be an asset to the Titans and we are looking at Boucher to entrench our position as a domestic cricketing leader on and off the field.”