Kallis, a young bloomer and a quick learner
Kallis is only the sixth player to have featured in 150 Tests, first from a country other than India or Australia.
December 14, 1995 seems an age ago.
Graeme Smith had just completed his eighth year at King Edward Seventh High School and the 11-year-old AB de Villiers was starting to make a name for himself at Warmbad Primary School. But on a bigger field, a 20-year-old from Western Province was making his Test debut in Durban.
The youngster got off the mark with a single but was soon caught-behind in the first-innings. There was to be no second chance with the fourth and fifth days’ play washed out.
He was omitted – the only time he was ever to be dropped – from the next Test but was back for the final Test of the series where his contribution remained an insignificant seven runs.
The selectors, however, had seen a lot more in Jacques Kallis than was evident from his early show. Coach Duncan Fletcher had brought him into the Western Province team as a number six batsman with the intention of moving him up the order as his career flourished.
But his start was so impressive that he quickly moved him up to third in the same season.
Two months before he made his Test debut, he toured Australia with Western Province and scored an unbeaten 186 against a Queensland attack spearheaded by Andy Bichel and Michael Kasprowicz.
Making swift progress
Kallis learned very quickly. Test number six saw him make his first half-century in Pakistan and in the following Test, he scored his maiden century – against Australia at the MCG.
It was a special innings: he batted for six hours to save the match for his side in a Herculean effort. It was, at that stage, only the second century to be scored against Shane Warne in the fourth innings of a Test.
Yesterday, Kallis played the 150th Test of his career – 149 for South Africa and one for the ICC World XI. He is the sixth player to reach this landmark and the first from a country other than India or Australia.
Maintaining an even head in the face of success
Apart from the statistics, Kallis has been totally unaffected by adulation and criticism and there can be no other player in the history of the game who ranks alongside his country’s all-time greats who has been on the receiving end of so much of the latter.
His focus has always been on doing what is best for the team. Some of his greatest performances have not been centuries for instance, but were invaluable to the team’s cause nonetheless.
One’s mind inevitably goes back to the first Test against India in Mumbai in 2000 when he made 36 not out in more than three hours to get the Proteas home when they only needed 163 to win.
He followed it with 95 in the following Test at Bangalore to make sure his side achieved the distinction of winning a Test series in India.
Only a human being after all
Fresh questions have been asked about his ability after he was pole-axed by Dilhara Fernando in the second Test against Sri Lanka where he bagged a pair. But all that has proved is that he is as mortal as any other cricketer.
Kallis will know when that time comes. A World Cup winners’ medal remains more than a dream. In the short term he will undoubtedly want to score that Test century at Lord’s that has always eluded him.
But there are several chapters to be written before then. And Kallis has never been one to look further ahead than the next day’s play.
The writer is an Executive Consultant with Cricket South Africa
Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2012.
Graeme Smith had just completed his eighth year at King Edward Seventh High School and the 11-year-old AB de Villiers was starting to make a name for himself at Warmbad Primary School. But on a bigger field, a 20-year-old from Western Province was making his Test debut in Durban.
The youngster got off the mark with a single but was soon caught-behind in the first-innings. There was to be no second chance with the fourth and fifth days’ play washed out.
He was omitted – the only time he was ever to be dropped – from the next Test but was back for the final Test of the series where his contribution remained an insignificant seven runs.
The selectors, however, had seen a lot more in Jacques Kallis than was evident from his early show. Coach Duncan Fletcher had brought him into the Western Province team as a number six batsman with the intention of moving him up the order as his career flourished.
But his start was so impressive that he quickly moved him up to third in the same season.
Two months before he made his Test debut, he toured Australia with Western Province and scored an unbeaten 186 against a Queensland attack spearheaded by Andy Bichel and Michael Kasprowicz.
Making swift progress
Kallis learned very quickly. Test number six saw him make his first half-century in Pakistan and in the following Test, he scored his maiden century – against Australia at the MCG.
It was a special innings: he batted for six hours to save the match for his side in a Herculean effort. It was, at that stage, only the second century to be scored against Shane Warne in the fourth innings of a Test.
Yesterday, Kallis played the 150th Test of his career – 149 for South Africa and one for the ICC World XI. He is the sixth player to reach this landmark and the first from a country other than India or Australia.
Maintaining an even head in the face of success
Apart from the statistics, Kallis has been totally unaffected by adulation and criticism and there can be no other player in the history of the game who ranks alongside his country’s all-time greats who has been on the receiving end of so much of the latter.
His focus has always been on doing what is best for the team. Some of his greatest performances have not been centuries for instance, but were invaluable to the team’s cause nonetheless.
One’s mind inevitably goes back to the first Test against India in Mumbai in 2000 when he made 36 not out in more than three hours to get the Proteas home when they only needed 163 to win.
He followed it with 95 in the following Test at Bangalore to make sure his side achieved the distinction of winning a Test series in India.
Only a human being after all
Fresh questions have been asked about his ability after he was pole-axed by Dilhara Fernando in the second Test against Sri Lanka where he bagged a pair. But all that has proved is that he is as mortal as any other cricketer.
Kallis will know when that time comes. A World Cup winners’ medal remains more than a dream. In the short term he will undoubtedly want to score that Test century at Lord’s that has always eluded him.
But there are several chapters to be written before then. And Kallis has never been one to look further ahead than the next day’s play.
The writer is an Executive Consultant with Cricket South Africa
Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2012.