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[beaver5]

Horrible news to hear about Mark Boucher's eye injury today against Somerset. Doesn't sound good at all with emergency surgery and looked bad on sky news footage. Reminds me a bit of Paul Downton's similar injury which forced him to retire from county cricket back in the 80's or early 90's.

Just shows how vulnerable keepers are to these sort of incidents. I got a bad injury a number of years ago standing up to a medium pacer. After pitching, the ball seemed to loop and landed on the top of the stumps and then deflected up into my eye. Within seconds my eye sealed over, which was not good as I had contacts in. I fractured my eye socket and lost all feeling in the left side of my face for months. I saw an eye specialist who said I may or may not get the feeling back and that surgery had a low success rate for nerve endings. Thankfully the feeling returned but I've hardly ever kept wicket since.

[scottish_slogger95]

He should have been wearing a helmet really. but yeah its bad news

I take it that is him out for the England tour then? If so that is the last time we will see him as he was meant to retire after this tour

[shazz]

This sounds in bad taste, but its a blessing in disguise for SA, as he was not the best they had to offer. IMO.

[essexarsenal]

Dane Vilas is number two isnt he ?

Or will De Villers keep ?

[Alvaro]

Tsolekile is SA A keeper playing Sri Lanka

[smokem]

That's a nasty injury by the sounds of it. Hope it works out for him. My best wishes to him a speedy recovery. It is a matter of time before keepers wear a helmet at all times when standing up.

[Manormanic]

aye - I had two teeth removed and a fracture to my jaw after an occasional pie thrower put through a genuinely quick quicker ball without telling me - top of the off stump into my mush!

[shazz]

I've had a bail caught in my helmet before = a very relieved me.

[MJB3]

As a  keeper I find being stuck under  a lid very uncomfortable. To avoid being hit in the eye, as i have in the past, I simply wear sunglasses. Even wearing a helmet a bail can hit you in the eye. Shades and aero masks is the way forward

[Kieron_BT]

I wore an Aero mask once but it just annoyed me with the strip of metal that goes between the eyes. Couldn't do with it at all! If they could get rid of this bit i'd definitly wear one!

[mr_wickets]

I think you'll find alot more keepers standing up with helmets, as the year when keepers were forced to wear helmets (brought in by the ECB) most of those lads will now be in their early 20's. Anyone over the age of 25 will have never been made to wear one growing up keeping.

[Ayrtek Cricket]

very true, the younger lads at our club use it as a standard part of their kit where as i missed out being forced to wear one by a year!

[norbs]

sad news he's retired from Cricket!

[trypewriter]

Very sad for a career to end in such a way.

[Cys1]

Unbelievably sad news about Bouch retiring today. Such a sad way for a great servant of SA cricket to go out. Feel so bad for him as I think he deserves to have had that acknowledgement from the crowd on his final game.
I hope everything went well with the surgery and that he regains full use of his eye again.