Nicky Boje
Encyclopedia
Nico "Nicky" Boje is a South African cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

er who played in 43 Tests
Test cricket
Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 and 115 One Day Internationals for South Africa, and attended Grey College in Bloemfontein. He is currently playing for the Chevrolet Warriors in the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...

, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

.

Northamptonshire

Boje joined English side Northamptonshire CCC for the last few weeks of the 2007 season as a replacement overseas player for Johan Van der Wath. A few days later it was announced that he would be joining the breakaway Indian Cricket League
Indian Cricket League
The Indian Cricket League was a private cricket league funded by Zee Entertainment Enterprises that operated between 2007 and 2009 in India...

. In 2008, the captain
Captain (cricket)
The captain of a cricket team often referred to as the skipper is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player...

 of Northamptonshire, David Sales
David Sales
David John Grimwood Sales is an English cricket player who has played for the cricket teams of Northamptonshire, England A and Wellington.-Domestic career:...

, resigned and Boje took over the role as captain
Captain (cricket)
The captain of a cricket team often referred to as the skipper is the appointed leader, having several additional roles and responsibilities over and above those of a regular player...

 for Northamptonshire. In that season, the captaincy had no effect on his batting as he scored his highest ever First class cricket
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...

 score of 226*. He signed a new one year contract on the 3rd September 2009 which will see him lead the club through the 2010 season.

International career

Boje's international career began in 1995 against Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean cricket team
The Zimbabwean cricket team is a national cricket team representing Zimbabwe. It is administrated by Zimbabwe Cricket...

, and although he was in and out of the team due to injuries he established himself as South Africa's first choice spin bowler
Spin bowling
Spin bowling is a technique used for bowling in the sport of cricket. Practitioners are known as spinners or spin bowlers.-Purpose:The main aim of spin bowling is to bowl the cricket ball with rapid rotation so that when it bounces on the pitch it will deviate, thus making it difficult for the...

. Due to the amount of all-rounder
All-rounder
An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a few batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are considered specialists...

s in the South African team, Boje usually batted at eight or nine in the batting order, despite a first class batting average
Batting average
Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of 32 and both Test and ODI averages around 26, which was the highest for a regular number nine in Test cricket in the 2000s. However, despite the reasonably high average he never hit a Test century, although did make two ODI centuries against New Zealand
New Zealand cricket team
The New Zealand cricket team, nicknamed the Black Caps, are the national cricket team representing New Zealand. They played their first in 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand, becoming the fifth country to play Test cricket. It took the team until 1955–56 to win a Test, against the...

 in 2000–01.

In December 2006, Boje announced his retirement from international cricket, effective immediately. He finished his career with exactly 100 Test wickets, the wicket of Mahela Jayawardene
Mahela Jayawardene
Denagamage Proboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene , known as Mahela Jayawardene, is the former captain of the Sri Lankan cricket team. He is a specialist batsman who has a Test average of over 50, and an ODI average in the 30s...

 in his final Test brought up his milestone.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK