Red ball highs, 50-over falls: The highs & lows of Mark Boucher's Proteas coaching story

Mark Boucher's tenure as Proteas coach fitted in a decade of events on and off the field in just under three years of work. We look at his highs and lows on the field:

His first crushing blow: Third Test v England, Gqeberha, 2020 - Lost by an innings and 53 runs

Boucher joined the Proteas as soon as Graeme Smith was announced as director of cricket (acting at the time), and the appointment caused a fair bit of opprobrium as Enoch Nkwe, who was better qualified and had more coaching experience, was demoted to be his assistant after acting in the coaching position after Ottis Gibson's post-World Cup exit.

The England series started unexpectedly well with the Proteas winning the first Test despite fielding two debutants in Dwaine Pretorius and Rassie van der Dussen.

England clawed their way back into the series with a 189-run win in the second Test at Newlands where the game was decided in the last hour of the fifth evening.

Whatever fight they had left with that Newlands Test as the third Test at St George's Park saw the Proteas cascaded to an innings and 53-run defeat. That scale of defeat was SA's first of that manner at home since 2002.

Across both innings, none of the top five batters crossed 40 as SA's batting woes that admittedly started before Boucher's tenure continued unabated.

The fourth Test at the Wanderers was also lost by a wide margin as the Proteas surrendered their second consecutive home series against England.

A rare high: A limited overs whitewash of Australia at home

Far better fight was shown in the limited-overs series against England, but another low was hit when the Proteas batting blew out badly against Australia in the T20 series where they were bowled out for 96 and 89 in the first and the third games of