Kallis is the greatest all-rounder ever

Have to agree with John B here Cricket is a game of statistics and by statistics Kallis is the best all rounder in history by a country mile in all three facets of the game. A quick visit to wikipedia will show Kallis(as on 10 november 2009) has a career test strike rate of 44.27 runs per hundred balls in tests and 72.02 in odi's which is good for any player never mind one labelled as 'selfish' for most of his career. so Spiro and co. that at least clarifies the so called unflamboyent and slow batting Kallis is accused of playing As to kallis's match winning abillity any South african can atest to the crucial role Kallis has played in south africa(after Australia) being the dominant team in world cricket that it has been in the last decade and the role that he has played in almost any test series won by South africa since 2000. Any Bowler who has boweld to him would also atest to the way he can dominate the oposition. It is also interesting to note that Kallis is the only player on that list not to have been surrounded by equally(if not greater) players in his team as Sobers, kahn and Miller all were.( Mashall, akram and The great bradman respectivley, to name but a few) Kallis will, regardless of his critics, be in my opinion be rememberd alongside Sir Garfield as the best all rounder ever to have played the game for his immence contibution to both south african and world Cricket over the course of his career(which is far from over) with both bat and ball as well as in the field and for his great temprament and sporsmanship which hasnt got a single critic within the cricketing community unlike contemporary great players like ricky ponting( who, incidently is the only player ever to have scored 10000 runs in test cricket at a better average than Kallis,)

Kallis is a grat player no doubt, however there are other considerations. He has struggled against the best team of his era, Austrialia averaging only 39 with the bat. He has also played alot of cricket against modest attackets post walsh, ambrose, waqar, wasim etc. His ODI strikerate is also poor! Great player yes, the greatest absolutley not.

I actually had the pleasure of meeting Kallis the other day. He came across as relatively reserved and shy. Someone suggested he was one of the greatest all rounders of all time, at which he cracked a wry smile and shook his head, muttering "no" under his breath. Either he is particularly good at hiding his true feelings, or he is an extremely modest man. Needless to say, he has won himself a fan.

Thank God for the common sense here at The Roar! Yep, Sobers best ever all-rounder, daylight second......... Others in top 10 were mentioning (in no particular order) - Keith Miller, Mike Procter, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev, Ian Botham, Jaco Kallis, Trevor Goddard, Aub Faulkner, & one other.

Statistically is the key word. I would place Garry Sobers, Keith Miller and Ian Botham in my Top 3 and Kallis would struggle to get in my Top 10. So I agree with Spiro, John B and others. But Kallis's combined stats at Tests and ODIs levels are fantastic. Miller did not play ODIs and Sobers only one ODI. In my book Cricket's Great All-rounders I have stressed on match-winning abilities. So I agree with Ben J and would place Imran and Kapil as also Benaud, Davidson and Hadlee above Kallis. One should be guided by stats and not governed by them. All the same Kallis deserves credit for his consistent performances with bat and ball for 13 years. He should not be over-rated. Unfortunately he is highly under-rated. Brilliant he is not, nor a show pony but has contributed to South Africa's victories by his sheer consistency. He deserves applause for being a quiet achiever.

Ben J hits it on the head for mine (without mentioning his far from negligible slip catching). To borrow the golfing cliche - at the end of the day, it's not how but how many. I think people get carried away with style sometimes - sure it's great to watch a Richards in full flow, but having a Gomes at the other end is just as necessary to have a really good team - and while the Gomes type player may not win you games by himself, he'll quite possibly contribute more consistently to your overrall success. Would Gomes have contributed more by throwing the bat more - almost certainly not. Same with Kallis. And incidentally - how many games have SA failed to win because of his allegedly selfish batting? For that matter, would you really have hesitated for a heartbeat before agreeing to swap Kallis, as a test player, for almost anyone who's batted from 3 to 6 for Australia during Kallis's career?

My only question would be: What is the criteria for being a great all-rounder? Is it the matchwinning ability, the unselfish nature or not of taking wickets and scoring runs? Or is it solely the ability with the bat and ball? If it is the players ability to score runs and take wickets then stop with the if's but's and maybe's. Look at the scoreboard and marvel at his ability.

Further to my previous comment, and since I mentioned Shane Warne in it: in his original list, from 2007, of the 50 greatest players of his times, Warne ranked Kallis equal 27th, below such players as Mark Taylor (10th), Mark Waugh (12th), Graham Gooch (15th), Merv Hughes (18th), Stephen Fleming (23rd), Brett Lee (24) and Darren Lehmann (25). Of course these players all have test statistics that are third rate compared to those of Kallis, which makes the point that statistics only give a crude estimate of match-influencing ability. Interestingly, Kallis was one of the big movers in the year between Warne's original list and his revised version of 2008: Kallis shoots up to 17, still below Mark Waugh (9), Taylor (12) and Gooch (15), but now with the accolade of being above Merv Hughes (18) and the others mentioned above. One wonders what made Warne revise his opinion to this extent? Nevertheless, it's still hard to argue that someone who is only 17th in a list of players of the 1990s and 2000s should be regarded as an all-time great, let alone the greatest all-rounder of all time. Of course this is only Warne's opinion. But whether one loves him or loathes him, all agree that Warne has an intuitive feeling for the game that is second-to-none. This is really what his lists represent, and it is really what is being expressed by all who write above that Kallis's statistics do not reflect his impact as a player.

I could not agree more with the comments of Spiro and others that Kallis's statistics lie about his true impact. If I could use a tennis analogy, since this the tennis season, one might liken Kallis to someone like Nikolay Davydenko, a player who is able to win a lot but who is boring to watch and who simply is not a great player. (Actually, with their balding pates, the two men even look a bit alike, and one might even say that Davydenko's ranking of 5 is about where one would rate Kallis amongst current world cricketers.) Where Kallis differs from Davydenko is that I suspect there is a great player within Kallis. Occasionally I have seen him get worked up in one-day cricket and really put on a masterclass of attacking, match-winning batting. But generally he seems to be a victim of the laager mentality of South African captains, in that he has been too circumspect and risk-averse to be a great player. Now that things are a bit more carefree under Graeme Smith (who, post-IPL under Shane Warne, has become a much more inspiring and creative leader), Kallis seems to be more relaxed, as Peter Roebuck has regularly pointed out. However it has all come too late in his career for him to achieve true greatness, because his age is such that his abilities seem to be in decline.

Would have to agree with Spiro on this one. Kallis is a great all rounder and would be in any era of the game But Sobers is the man for me. His stats are as impressive as any in tests with bat (93 tests, 8032 runs, Ave:57.78, HS 365*), Ball (235 Wkts @ 34.03) and 109 catches. Kallis is the all rounder of the modern era in tests and one dayers.

Key line there Spiro - "decides the outcome of a match." Yep his stats are fantatsic but he will keep you in a game rather than win you one. Even Sth Africans will say he is a selfish player at times. Sobers and Miller "dared" to win and deserve the accolades that have come their way because of such a positive attitude towards winning matches (from what I have read).

I'm pleased that Kersi makes the point that Jacques Kallis is 'statistically' the greatest all-rounder ever. Note, he doesn't argue that Kallis is the greatest all-rounder ever. The mantle for that title will always go to Sir Garfield Sobers, and after him greats like Keith Miller and Ian Botham who were match-winners with the bat and with the ball. Kallis has the runs and wickets on the board but you'd be hard-pressed to cite a match that he has actually won. He reminds me a lot of an all-rounder Geoff Boycott, an accumulator of runs, particularly, but rarely at a rate that decides the outcome of a match. Nevertheless, the statistics are fantastic. Moreover, Kallis has always been an ornament to the game on the field. He doesn't seem to go to for the histrionics and sledging that many of his contemporaries (most of them Australian, unfortunately) have indulged in.

We always bag Kallis and it often comes down to the boring and selfish line. Put it this way, what if David Boon could bowl like Damian Fleming and catch like Hayden. Greatest ever is debateable, He is however great. His greatest strength is his durability and if Sth Africa win the home series I am sure he will have contributed with bat and ball.

Nah, as much as it pains to mention it, but Beefy would have to have been the best all rounder IMO - although thats saying it as an Australian, and for some reasons the Aussies used to shit themselves when Botham was playing against them.

Great stats, but I don't think I'll be telling my grand-kids about him. He's about as exciting as a first-day wicket at Adelaide Oval and I reckon he's a selfish player. I'm sure he would be more familiar with his own stats than how many Test, one-dayer and T20 wins he's led South Africa to.