Stumped by Bouch the Grouch

It’s my fault the Proteas lost the Test against India this week. I’m sorry, Biff and co. You see, when Mark Boucher walked to the crease with South Africa in trouble at 136/5 I wasn’t feeling particularly patriotic. South Africa needed 167 more runs to win. As Zaheer Khan began his run-up, I closed my eyes and willed him to take Boucher’s wicket. Bada boom, bada bing. I opened my eyes just in time to see The Bouch slouch off the field. 
He’d contributed just one run to the Proteas’ cause. That should teach Boucher a lesson, I gloated. I immediately felt ashamed.
My unpatriotic behaviour began with a pun. In an Angry Utterances (10) column about Wikileaks a while back I’d written that I’d seen Boucher relieving himself under a tree and suggested that this was a case of “wickie leaks”.  Of course, I hadn’t actually seen Boucher pee.
On Friday Wikileaks puns were flying around the Twittersphere and I decided to contribute my one about Boucher.
I had been a Boucher fan since he was called up to the South African side 13 years ago. He may not play with Jacques Kallis’ flair, but he’s gutsy. I had fought with critics who said it was time for Boucher to hand the gloves to AB de Villiers. “We need experience in the side,” I argued. I defended him against accusations that he was part of a Mafia-style clique in the side. “He’s nurturing younger players.” And I even put up with his “Awwwwwww, great bowling, Harold. I laaaaik it, Harro” after each ball Paul Harris bowls.
A few minutes after I’d tweeted my wickie leaks pun there was a message in my Twitter inbox. It was from The Bouch himself. I was sure he was going to say: “Awwwwww, great punning, Jonno. I laaaik it, Jonno.” Maybe he’d even retweet it to his 25 000 followers.
This is the power of Twitter, I thought, it bridges the divide between cricketers and fans. The cricketer had noticed a nobody – me. I was thrilled. I opened the message. But instead of being impressed the cricketer was indignant. Who knew The Bouch had no sense of humour?
He accused me of being abusive. I’d written that he’d had a pee under a tree and he was, er, pissed off.  (Incidentally, he treated spelling and grammar with the same respect he has shown to Zim bowlers, which is to say, very little.)
I wanted to explain that it was a harmless pun and I hadn’t meant to offend him, but you can only send messages to tweeters who follow you. And then I noticed Boucher had blocked me. I was banned from following his tweets. I was banned from being his fan. He also blocked people who had retweeted my pun, including Cape Argus editor Gasant Abarder.
I wasn’t the first person to offend him. “Watever,” he told someone else whose tweet he didn’t like.
For 13 years I had celebrated each catch and stumping Boucher took and every run he scored. But just because he didn’t like my pun, he dismissed me. It seemed so unfair, which is why I felt so uncharitable on Wednesday. “Boucher, you should have blocked Khan, not me!”
Feeling guilty for my role in the Proteas’ loss I turned to the crossword puzzle in the Sunday Times. I saw 17 Across – Allows the team to drink and causes disappointment (4, 3, 4, 4).* Was it meant for The Grouch or me. Both, probably.

*Lets the side down. It’s a double definition clue. If you allow the team to drink you let the side “down”.