As South Africa gets ready to take on England in a four-match home Test series, the cricket board has appointed former wicket-keeper batsman Mark Boucher as their head coach till 2023, with Enoch Nkwe to act as assistant coach and former Test opener Ashwell Prince to coach the South African A side.

While talking about the move, CSA’s director of cricket Graeme Smith said, “I felt at this stage that the Proteas need a hardened guy with international experience, one who is very knowledgeable and tactically very sound, and we also know what qualities he has as a man.”

“We feel Enoch has a lot of qualities that will be very useful to Mark and it is a good opportunity for him to advance his own role in South African cricket going forward,” he added.

When the newly appointed head coach Boucher was asked about this upcoming England assignment, he said, “Our confidence is a bit down, we need to get that back. There is a wealth of knowledge in this country. We need to get consultants in and get information through to the players to give them the space to do their best.”

The 43-year-old wicket-keeper batsman represented South Africa in 147 Test and 295 ODI matches and he has 5515 Test runs along with 4686 ODI runs to his name. He also effected 999 dismissals in international cricket, most for any wicket-keeper.

(With Reuters inputs)