Sydney, Feb 4: South African wicketkeeper Mark Boucher today wishes his Australian counterpart Adam Gilchrist had extended his career by a year so that they could face each other in a Test series.

Gilchrist claimed Boucher`s record for most Test dismissals in the final Test of his career against India in Adelaide.

"I sent him a message to say how disappointed I was to hear that he was calling it a day because the last time I saw him I told him he`d better keep his incredible career going so that we could have one last showdown at the end of the year," Boucher said.

South Africa are set to tour Australia for three Tests before hosting the Aussies for another three soon after.

"It was a big shock to hear he was going. But everyone knows how important his family is to him so I`m sure he made the right call. I`ll miss him a lot," Boucher was quoted as saying by `The Daily Telegraph.`

Boucher said Gilchrist was one of those rare players who added a new Dimension to cricket.

"If I think of the great innovators of my time, guys who revolutionised the game and made people see it in a different way, I`d say Jonty Rhodes and Adam Gilchrist would be top of the pile.

"Jonty changed the way people thought of fielding and Gilly has set the bar so high for the next generation of keeper-batsmen that it`s almost unfair," Boucher, who is just three short of Gilchrist`s world record of 416 dismissals, said.

South African captain Graeme smith said he appreciated the respect he got from Gilchrist.

"The way he made an effort to contact Boucher when he broke the world record was typical of him," smith said. "We were in Pakistan and Australia were in India. It just wasn`t a question of dialling a local number."

Gilchrist remained in contact with smith and shared his observations about the game.

"Gilly used to call me from time to time or send me messages commenting on our performances. Like when Jacques Kallis scored five hundreds in four Tests and he sent me a message saying `tell jakes he`s a freak`," smith said.

"I was always able to talk to him and socialise with him, to put cricket into perspective," the South African skipper added.