Jacques of all trades!

Jacques Kallis. That is a name which every cricket team in the world would be hoping was in their playing eleven. It is really surprising that despite his achievements in the game over the past decade he is not spoken of in the same league as a Sachin Tendulkar or a Ricky Ponting.  His numbers as a batsman alone rank up along with the best to have ever played the game. To add to it, nearly 300 wickets in both forms of the game, we are now talking about one of the greatest all-rounders to have ever played the game. 

Kallis started as a lower middle order batsman, who could be considered good enough to be a first change bowler in the team. As the years went by, his skills as a batsman demanded a position in the top four. His bowling work load reduced, but Kallis the batsman just went leaps and bounds from then on. An average of over 60 in the 100 Tests he has played at no 4 is a testament to the fact.

For most part of his career Kallis was accused of being an extremely slow batsman. But over the last four years, he has shown a side of his game, which was never seen before. This can be seen in the figures below.

	Matches	Runs	Average	Strike Rate
Overall Career	321	11498	45.26	72.97
Since 2008	52	2184	47.01	82.57

                                   Statistics showing Kallis record in ODI cricket

His strike rate over the last four years in limited over cricket is 83 as compared to an overall career strike rate of 73. Mind you, despite his aggressive stint, the average is more or less the same which shows that he has vastly improved his game over this period. A part of the credit must go to the IPL, where he has developed his game and took it to the next level.

As a test batsman, he is already the fourth highest run scorer in the history of the game. In the process he has also become the second fastest batsman to score 13000 runs in tests.

There was a period in the 1980s when almost every major team had a great all-rounder. England had Ian Botham, Pakistan Imran Khan, India Kapil Dev and New Zealand Richard Hadlee. It is surprising that ever since, other than Kallis no other player has fulfilled all round duties over a long period of time. Andrew Flintoff, Chris Cairns, Lance Klusner all had their moments in the game, but never could consistently play over a long period of time mainly due to injuries as they couldn’t sustain the vigours of both batting and bowling. Shane Watson, one of the best all-rounders currently playing the game too has had an injury prone career. With the amount of cricket being played these days, it’s almost impossible to imagine an all-rounder having a long career. It is a tribute to how Kallis has maintained himself over the years and be able to contribute in both aspects of the game. Add to that a career tally of 192 test catches, which is the third highest in Test cricket, he is definitely amongst the greatest all-rounders to have ever played the game.

              How does Kallis fair in comparison to all-rounders of yestyears?

Player	Matches	Runs	Batting Avg	Wickets	Bowling Avg	Difference (Bat. Avg - Bowl. Avg)
J Kallis	159	13040	56.94	282	32.57	+24.37
Garry Sobers	93	8032	57.78	235	34.03	+23.75
Ian Botham	102	5200	33.54	383	28.40	+5.14
Imran Khan	88	3807	37.69	362	22.81	+14.88
Richard Hadlee	86	3124	27.16	431	22.29	+4.87
Kapil Dev	131	5248	31.05	434	29.64	+1.41

As we can see Kallis is matched only by Sir Garry Sobers in respect to the difference in batting and bowling averages, but Kallis has played more than 60 matches than him and yet maintained his performances. His durability and consistency is something which all aspiring sportsmen should strive to achieve.

Tendulkar is revered as God in India and recently MS Dhoni considered Zaheer Khan as the Tendulkar of India’s bowling. Kallis batting has been as good as Sachin over the years and has nearly taken the same of amount of wickets as Zaheer as. With this one can realize what a multi-dimensional cricketer he has been.

A fast bowling all-rounder is a dying breed, and with the standards set by Kallis, it is hard to imagine anyone in the near future matching his feats.  At 37, there might not be a lot of­­­­­ cricket left in Kallis, but he will definitely go down as one of the greatest players to have ever played the game if not the greatest. His loss would be a large void to fill in for South Africa and the cricketing world.  

Posted by H 10:33

About Rohit Ramachandran Poduval
A Classical Leg Spinner, Writer and Software Engineer. Please feel free to add my Google profile to your circles. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook