Nicky Boje

Nicky Boje
Personal information
Full name	Nico Boje
Born	20 March 1973 (age 51); Bloemfontein, Orange Free State Province, South Africa
Nickname	Godfrey Boje
Height	173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Batting	Left-handed
Bowling	Slow left-arm orthodox
Role	All-rounder
Relations	Eduard Boje (brother)
International information
National side	South Africa (1995–2006);
Test debut (cap 276)	24 February 2000 v India
Last Test	4 August 2006 v Sri Lanka
ODI debut (cap 34)	21 October 1995 v Zimbabwe
Last ODI	30 October 2005 v New Zealand
Only T20I (cap 1)	21 October 2005 v New Zealand
Domestic team information
1990/91–2012/13	Free State
2002	Nottinghamshire
2003/04–2006/07	Eagles
2007–2010	Northamptonshire (squad no. 17)
2009/10–2011/12	Warriors
2012/13–2013/14	Knights
Career statistics
	Source: ESPNcricinfo, 31 October 2021
Representing South Africa
Men's Cricket
Commonwealth Games

Nico Boje (/ˌbɔɪˈjeɪ/ boy-YAY; born 20 March 1973) is a South African former cricketer who played in 43 Tests, 115 One Day Internationals and single Twenty20 International for South Africa. Boje was a member of the South Africa team that won the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy, the only ICC trophy the country has won till date.

Boje was a member of Africa XI team for 2005 Afro-Asia Cup. He is the first cap of Twenty20 Internationals for South Africa as well.

He attended Grey College in Bloemfontein. He is currently coaching the Knights cricket team in the Free State, South Africa. His brother, Eduard Boje, also played first-class cricket.

Domestic career

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. In 2008, the captain of Northamptonshire, David Sales, resigned and Boje took over the role as captain for Northamptonshire. In that season, he scored his highest ever First class cricket score of 226*. He signed a new one-year contract on 3 September 2009 which saw him lead the club through the 2010 season.^[1]

International career

Boje's international career began in 1995 against Zimbabwe, and although he was in and out of the team due to injuries he established himself as South Africa's first choice spin bowler. Due to the amount of all-rounders in the South African team, Boje usually batted at eight or nine in the batting order, despite a first class batting average 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 in 2000–01. And also in that 6 match ODI series, he amassed 355 runs in 6 innings and broke the record for scoring the most runs in a 6 match bilateral ODI series^[2]

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 in his final Test brought up his milestone.