A few hours after seeing his team beaten 1-2 by England in their Test series, Boucher announced on Monday that he would step down as coach after the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia which begins next month.
South Africa is expected to play a reduced number of 28 Tests over the next four-year cycle to make room in the schedule for its new T20 domestic league, Cricket South Africa CEO Pholetsi Moseki has told ESPNcricinfo.
That’s a low game count compared to England (43 Tests over the same period), Australia (40) and India (38), and won’t do much to nurture players in the league. five-day arena.
“Losing sight of Test cricket and losing matches is not great,” Boucher told reporters. “I’m a purist. I love test cricket in chunks. It’s the purest form of the game and the one we really have to deal with.
“The chiefs of the game need to come together and find a way to play more Test cricket. It’s exciting, especially with the way games are played now. It’s very rare that you have draws.
“The game has moved on, maybe because of T20 cricket. Guys are playing shots they usually never would. It’s attacking and it’s a fun game to watch. So the more we see it, the better it will be for everyone.”
Boucher says England’s ‘Bazball’ style of attacking may be the future of Test cricket, but won’t work for all teams and in all conditions.
“It’s one thing to tell guys to go out there and play with freedom, but there are consequences when they’re fighting for their Test spots and fighting for their careers,” Boucher said.
“It’s a fine line as a coach because a guy comes along and you don’t want to change him. It’s not a learning academy. It’s the test of cricket.
“We give players the freedom to play, to express themselves. Every guy. The way England would like to go out and play, you have to have the characters to do that.
“A lot of their guys are also good white-ball cricketers.”