Watch: Mark Boucher ridicules and sledges Tatenda Taibu

Watch: Mark Boucher ridicules and sledges Tatenda Taibu: The verbal sledging attack of the veteran South African wicket-keeper Mark Boucher came against Zimbabwe’s wicket keeper in the second test match in 2005, Centurion. South Africa easily won the match by an innings but that isn’t why this match is known for. The match rose to eminence due to Mark Boucher’s funny comments from behind the stumps to unnerve Taibu. Taibu was batting in the second innings, Nicky Boje bowling and Boucher was behind the wickets.

Zimbabwe were 62 for four, still 149 short of making South Africa bat again. “That’s a big shot Tatenda,” says Boucher while Taibu defends and stonewalls the deliveries, before asking where his mouth was during the previous Test when South Africa had a full pace attack. Boucher offers to walk Taibu back to the changing room if he gets out, reminding him that his tour average might be in single figures.

The footage ends with Boucher asking Taibu whether his average is nine or 10 before, to laughs from fielders, a rhetoric question to which he later answers that it might be around 9.5 or 10. I don’t know if Boucher was ever aware of the fact that his taunts were actually recorded in the stumps mic. But I think he didn’t mind it. It was a needless sledging incident. Zimbabwe were definitely going to lose and South Africa clearly had the upper hand. Boucher simply showed himself as a bully. It clearly seems to be in bad taste and Tatenda silently bears the verbal onslaught launched by the South African.

Watch: Mark Boucher ridicules and sledges Tatenda Taibu: