World Twenty20: Prizes over plaudits, says Kallis

Veteran cricketer aims to finally get his hands on a trophy.

South African veteran Jacques Kallis has scored 43 Test hundreds, as well as 17 in one-days, and has amassed more than 24,000 international runs in total.

However, the classy allrounder believes that he prefers winning prizes over plaudits, as his side prepares for the Super Eights stage that starts tomorrow.

“We’re hoping to finally win a knockout,” said Kallis. “Unfortunately we haven’t quite crossed the line in previous years. I think we won the first ICC Champions Trophy in Bangladesh many years ago [in 1998]. Since then it’s been pretty dry and disappointing. We’re just trying to focus on stuff we can control at the moment. We have a few different things in place in this tournament and hopefully those things will bring out different results this time around.”

South Africa have been impressive over the past 18 months and Kallis believes the only satisfactory outcome for the Proteas will be walking away with the trophy.

“We just have to keep doing what we’ve done over the last few years. We’ve played some good cricket and if we carry on it gives us the best opportunity to lift the trophy.”

Kallis aims to win the elusive World Cup before retiring, however, he said the World Twenty20 would be a ‘great start’.

“This trophy will be a great start. You don’t come into this tournament to lose.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2012.