Being an all-rounder is the toughest job in cricket, as one needs to give a balanced performance with both bat and ball. It requires a tremendous amount of skill, endurance, and temperament. Jacques Kallis had all of these in abundance. The man could bat for long periods of time and could bowl long spells with the ball as well.
Kallis stood as a rock for the major part of his career around which South African cricket thrived. Technically sound with the bat, absolutely lethal with the ball and had a safe pair of hands on the field. Kallis was a complete cricket package who earned massive respect and appreciation from the cricketing world.
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Kallis had a usual batting style and didn’t have any uniqueness to his game which meant that he wasn’t considered in the same bracket as other all-time greats like Sachin Tendulkar and Don Bradman.
But the numbers tell a different story. With the ball, he was no Wasim Akram or Allan Donald but whenever he bowled, he’d change the flow of the game. Often used as a strike bowler to break partnerships.
Kallis has left behind a great legacy for world cricket which will live forever. As the South African legend turns 41, here we analyse why he is regarded as the greatest cricketer ever to have graced a cricket field.
Consistent performances with both bat and ball:
Jacques Kallis’s stats across all forms of cricket will leave you spellbound. He is the only cricketer to have scored more than 10000 runs and taken over 250 wickets in both Tests and ODIs. In his illustrious career, Kallis has notched up 13,289 runs in the longer format of the game in 166 Test matches.
His average of 55.37 is superior to that of Tendulkar, Dravid, Ponting, and Lara. But, what makes Kallis stand out is his wicket taking ability with the ball. A bowler, who is predominantly an away swinger, and has the capability of surprising the batsman with pace and bounce.
The strongly built all-rounder has scalped 292 wickets at an average of 32.65.
The 41-year-old had equal success in the 50 over format of the game as well. The right-hander aggregated 11,574 runs with 17 centuries and 86 half-centuries at an average of 44.36. With the ball, Kallis has taken 273 wickets at an impressive average of 31.79. Having such impressive records in both forms of the game makes Kallis an all time great.
Has proven himself in all conditions:
The hallmark for a great cricketer is his ability to perform in alien conditions. Kallis, over the course of his career, has proved his mettle in overseas conditions and has brought great laurels to South African cricket.
Very early on in his cricketing career, Kallis played a match-saving knock of 101 against Australia at the MCG against the likes of Mcgrath and Warne and announced himself to the cricketing world. The swashbuckling batsman also has the most Test runs in Asia, for a Non-Asian batsman.
Averaging 55.62 in 25 Tests, Kallis has amassed 2058 runs with 8 hundreds and 8 fifties to his name. His best bowling performance too came in overseas conditions against England at Headingley in 2003. With the absence of Pollock in the side, Kallis bowled his side to victory on the final day of the Test match with best figures of 6-54.
His match-winning ability:
Jacques Kallis has always come up with the goods when his team was in trouble and has bailed them out on numerous occasions. The luxury of being an all-rounder is you can make up for it if you fail in any one of the department.
Kallis has the most number of man-of-the-match awards than any other player in Test cricket, which speaks volumes about his match-winning prowess. He won 23 of them in his splendid Test career. The 41-year-old also has the second most man of the series awards (9), only next to the Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan (11).
In ODI cricket the South African cricketer is 3rd on the all-time list with 32 man-of-the-match awards.
Prolific no.4 batsman:
There is no doubt whatsoever that Kallis’s major success came at no.4 position. Out of the 280 innings that Kallis played, 170 of them were played at the no.4 position. He made the no.4 position as his own and scored a truckload of runs at a steady rate.
Aggregating 9000 runs, Kallis has an average of 61.86 and tops the list at No.4 slot. On many occasions, the South African batsman has weathered the storm at the no.4 position if an early wicket falls. To be precise, on 26 occasions, Jacques Kallis has got the team out of trouble when the team’s score was 20 or lesser than that and averages 56.83.
One of the prime examples is When Kallis and Amla resurrected the South African innings after they lessened to 6 for 2 at Nagpur in 2010. They added 340 runs for the third wicket which was significant for their innings victory.
In his career, Kallis has failed only six times in 26 innings when the score reading around 20 or lesser, but whereas Sachin failed on 15 occasions in 37 innings for single digit scores, which makes the South African better than the Indian great.
Creating and breaking records at will:
• Kallis is the only player to have 1000 plus runs in Test cricket with ten different partners.
• Along with Ian Botham, Garry Sobers, and Mushtaq Mohammed, Kallis is one of the all-rounders to score a century and claim a five-for in Test cricket more than once. Kallis, along with Sobers and Mushtaq did it twice while Botham managed to achieve this feat for five times in his career.
• In 2003-04 Kallis managed to score five centuries in five successive tests. A remarkable feat indeed. Only Don Bradman has achieved this feat along with the South African.
• Kallis holds the record for scoring the second fastest fifty of 24 balls in Tests. He managed to achieve this feat against Zimbabwe in Cape Town, in 2005.
• Between January 1999 and December 2012, Kallis scored 11,961 runs in 136 Tests at an awe-inspiring average of 61.33, which included 42 centuries and 51 fifties.Based on a minimum requirement of 5,000 runs, no other batsman in the world during that time could boast either a better Test average or more hundreds than the South African great.
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