Greatest Wicketkeepers Of All Time
Wicketkeeping is a skill in cricket that not many have the ability to execute to perfection. As far as fielding positions are considered, it is the most important position in a cricket field. Very few cricketers in the world have excelled in the art of wicketkeeping and that makes it the toughest position to be in a cricket field.
It also has an added importance because he/she is the only one who has the best view of the happenings on the 22-yard pitch. He is the first person that a captain consults in case of referring a decision of an on-field umpire to the third umpire. In countries like England and Australia where the pitches have bounce and pace, the job of a wicket-keeper becomes more difficult as the ball comes at a great pace and also at a considerable bounce to the wicket-keeper.
Wicket-keepers have to be alert at all points of time because the ball could come to them at any time and in tough situations spilling a chance could be costly for the team. Wicket-keepers also have to be real quick especially in the case of stumping. They should also have a great presence of time and ability to read the situation of the games.
The game of cricket is lucky to have some great wicketkeepers and in the following slides, we are going to have a look at some of them.
#1 Mark Boucher-South Africa
Mark Boucher is considered to be the greatest cricketer to have played the game of cricket. He had 998 dismissals to his name across all the three formats of the game. He fell just short of reaching 1000 dismissals because he suffered a serious eye injury while wicket-keeping against Somerset in 2012 which brought an end to a glorious cricketing career.
In his career which spanned for almost 15 years, Boucher had 952 catches and effected 46 stumpings. He was also quite handy with the bat lower down the order for South Africa amassing 5515 runs at an average of 30.30 which included 5 hundred and 35 fifties.
With an almost perfect temperament, guts, and utmost determination, Mark Boucher is one of the greatest wicket-keepers of all time.