In the lead-up to the opening Test in Brisbane, Mickey Arthur, the coach of the Australian team said he believed that Jacques Kallis was second only to Sir Donald Bradman when it comes to the greatest players to have graced the field.
A huge call, but one coming from a man who saw plenty of Kallis up close during his time as South African coach.
As if to add further to Arthur’s claim, Kallis peeled off an innings of 147 at the Gabba, his 44th Test ton, second overall to Sachin Tendulkar’s career tally of 51 centuries.
He has now passed 50 in Test matches on 99 occasions.
So just where does Kallis sit in the pantheon of cricket greats?
His numbers are phenomenal. In the history of the sport, no player has had a greater direct involvement in the game.
The current Test is his 156th, in addition to which he has played 321 one-day internationals and 25 Twenty20 internationals.
During that time he has faced 56,044 deliveries and sent down 30,256.
That adds up to an incredible total of 86,300 deliveries in which he has been directly involved in the contest, more than any other player can boast.
Kallis’ resilience given the incredible workload his body has had to endure is another hallmark of his game.
The bulk of his career has seen him occupy the number four spot in the batting order.
The current Test is his 100th at second-drop, during which time he has averaged a staggering 65.2 and scored 34 centuries, a rate better than one every three matches.
His aggregate of 12,788 runs places him fourth all-time behind Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid.
As a batsman his career average (57.3) exceeds those of the men who are bracketed as the three pre-eminent players of his era – Tendulkar (55.1), Brian Lara (52.9) and Ponting (52.5).
Kallis never seems to be mentioned in the same breath as that trio, thanks in the main to the way he compiles his runs.
He lacks the dash and aggression of Tendulkar, Lara, or Ponting, yet his way of amassing runs has proved to be incredibly effective.
In many ways Kallis is looked upon more in the Dravid mould – an accumulator of runs rather than a rapid scoring aggressor who plays the more memorable and eye-catching knocks.
But one thing where Kallis has all of the above covered is the fact that he is a genuine all-rounder.
During the bulk of his career, he has been in South African teams that have boasted outstanding pace bowlers – Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock and Dale Steyn to name just three.
In lesser quality teams he would have been called upon to bowl even more.
But, as it is, he has captured 280 scalps at an average of 32.6.
Broad of shoulder, Kallis bowls what nowadays is referred to as a ‘heavy ball’.
Off a moderate run-up he can generate considerable pace and has often ventured past 140km/h.
His two catches to date in Australia’s first innings in Brisbane takes his career tally to 189; third place overall behind the retired Dravid (210) and the still active Ponting (194).
When it comes to ticking the boxes as an all-rounder he scores highly in each facet of the game.
When mentioning all-rounders, Sir Garfield Sobers is almost unanimously placed at the top of the tree and the great West Indian is often seen as the number two to Bradman as the game’s greatest player.
It is fascinating however when you compare the raw statistics of Sobers and Kallis.
The most effective way to do so is by averages given that Sobers played 93 Tests, 63 fewer than Kallis’ current total.
In the batting department Sobers averaged 57.8 to Kallis’ 57.3; Sobers a century every 6.1 innings and Kallis a ratio of one every 6.0; Sobers averaged 34.0 with the ball and Kallis 32.6; in the field, Sobers averaged 0.63 catches per innings and Kallis 0.64.
Sobers had the freakish ability to bowl every style – pace, finger spin and wrist spin.
Aside from that though, on a comparison of their raw statistics, little separates the pair.
Once again, many people would lean toward Sobers especially for the cavalier and swashbuckling way he batted.
But what of Kallis against the mighty quartet of all-rounders that graced the cricketing world of the 1980s – Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Kapil Dev and Sir Richard Hadlee?
It can easily be argued that each was a superior bowler to Kallis a but in the batting stakes it is the South African all the way for none of the four averaged in excess of 38.
Yet again though, he is nowhere near as free scoring or aggressive of those four.
So just where does Kallis sit in the pecking order of history?
It is as much a subjective analysis as it is objective.
And how much is Kallis ‘penalized’ by the way he goes about scoring his runs?
Bradman is a nonpareil given the sheer domination he displayed with the willow.
Then perhaps Sobers.
And then … well Kallis is hard to top.
James
Guest
And Sobers did not have to face his own great fast bowlers and Sobers batted down in the order unlike Kallis who usually found himself in the openers role as wickets tumbled about him. And so on. Face the written facts. Kallis is arguably the greatest all round cricketer in the history of the game.And he could have been classed as a genuine fast bowler in the first half of his career averaging a steady 135 to 140 plus km/hour. Same as McGrath. And most of his wickets were top order - only 38% of his victims were the tail. And we can go on forever.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
Gary Kirsten is third on the all time list for opening Batsman who had a lot of new partners. It was something like 27. That's just how unstable the South African top order was. In fact he brought stability to the side as he anchored as he was told to do by captain and coached other batted around him. That is why we saw a Kallis batting with a low strike rate. Not because he cannot do it at quicker tempo cause he was following team instructions. But lets not forget he is the only guy with more than 10000 runs and 200 wickets in both forms of the game. You don't achieve that by having spectacular or awesome batting around you. After all you have to bat yourself and he would be in normally the fifth over of a match facing a new ball. Wasim Akram said he watched him train and he said he was amazed by him especially in practice. He would go do a half hour on his batting in the nets. Then half hours on his bowling and then a half hours on his fielding and so on so on. That is tremendous just to think the effort he puts in to be able to bat, bowl and have top quality fielding at the highest level and still try to better himself at the age of 37. To be able to do al those things alone at 37 is a achievement in itself. There is no all rounder in current time or the last 10 years or so that have been able to achieve and manage to do what he did and stayed fit. He is a all time great irrespective if he Sobers was better than him or not. Show many any cricketer who achieved what he did in the modern era? There is none. The guy deserves recognition. I myself are not a South African but he has been one of my favorite cricketers. The work he puts in is phenomenal. If you want to show youngsters the basics of cricket and the manuals and manuals of batting you just show them Jacques Kallis playing. Always plays straight never across in the start of his innings. When South Africa and Australia played in that remarkable World Record game of 434 the South African team were shocked and their morale was pounded into the ground after Ricky Ponting smashed them to all parts the ground. It was said they were sitting in the dressing room not saying a word to each other all feeling like the dogs arse. Kallis said the following: 'Cmon guys this is a 450 run they are 15 runs short! Smith said they all started to laugh and that was just the bit of fire they needed to start deciding what they are going to do. In the end we all knew what happened as both sides served up one the best entertainment a crowd and tv audience has ever seen.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
If you open up Crickets the human coaching manual volumes 1 to 25 you will see a picture of Jacques Kallis there. Nothing else. Only player in history to have over 10000 runs and 200 wickets in one day cricket and test cricket. If you want to teach a youngster starting with cricket you will show him videos of Kallis as he do the basics so perfectly. When he comes in he play straight. Wasim Akram rate him as one of the ten most dufficult batsman he had to bowl to just thanks to that shuffle and straight bat of his.
ak
Guest
Hadlee as a bowler was better than Imran but as an all-rounder Imran is way ahead. Both have a bowling average of somewhere around 22 but Imran's batting average of 37 is much better than Hadlee's who averages something 27 with the bat. Now you may say that Imran played on batting friendly sub-continent pitches and give it as a reason for his having a better batting average. But before you say that remember that he also bowled on the same wickets and yet has a bowling average which is as good as Hadlee. I won't talk about his leadership skills here as we are talking about all-rounders and not about batsmen, bowlers or captains.
Andrew Glubb
Guest
Difficult to compare Kallis against someone like Richard Hadlee. Different eras, different allrounder. Kallis has always been a batsman who bowls as the 4th seamer, Hadlee a bowler who batted at 7 or 8. Accordingly, there are three different types of allrounders, batsmen who bowl, bowlers who bat, and front-liners with both. One thing NZ has produced (until recently) is top class allrounders. Sobers over Kallis easily for me. To not take into account sides like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, as well as the flatter pitches nowadays would be not comparing apples to apples. Arguably, Kallis was a better bowler due to this factor, but one also needs to consider that Sobers had all the variations. Kallis does not. Both are ahead of Keith Miller. Sobers was a far better match-winner for me. Kallis is amazingly consistent, yet when up against it, Kallis tends to get out, rather than turn match-winner. Hadlee would be the greatest bowling allrounder, over Khan, Dev and others. And Cairns over Botham for me. Cairns was front-line with both bat and ball and was magnificent in his later years. When NZ lost Cairns from its side in around 2004, they began a downhill slide in Test matches. It was a joke that Cairns was omitted by partisan NZ selectors in the best ever NZ11 published on Cric Info sometime ago. If you look closely at Vettori's stats, you will see he has struggled to take wickets for several years in the longest form of the game. And Cairns was a far better batsmen. Vettori's stats are inflated due to his performances versus Bangladesh and the like. Overall, when you compare apples to apples you have Sobers, Hadlee and Cairns as the best three allrounders in their different fields, followed by Kallis, Khan, Dev and Botham. I am sure I have probably forgotten a few though.
Farmerj
Guest
For me it comes down to the simple fact that Warne didnt look .like he was throwing a javelin.
dasilva
Roar Guru
Although I don't think that Shane Warne doped The suspicion behind his diuretic used is that Warne had a shoulder injury after an ODI against England and he recovered remarkably quick from that injury to be declared fit for the world cup and I remember people commenting with surprised on that quick recovery even before the positive test One of the benefits of anabolic steroids (at least theoretical benefits although there is debate amongst its efficacy) is the increase and speed up recovery from injury (although in all honesty I don't even believe it should be illegal to used it for injury recovery if that benefit is proven in clinical trials) and diuretics helped clear steroids from the system so it will become undetectable in a drug test and that's why it is a prohibited substance for athletes. If warne had steroids in his system he probably would have been banned for 2 years (really CA banned him for only one year for the diuretic use which was less than what WADA recommended) and his public reputation would have been completely destroyed. It's theoretically possible for an athlete to take an anabolic steroids and then used diuretics to cleared it from the system to avoid detection in a drug test. I'm not saying warne did that but that's the reason why he was banned for a year because of that potential misused. Still it doesn't really effect how I judge him as a bowler
dasilva
Roar Guru
Funny enough in the whole warne vs murali debate it's very very common for people to used that exact argument. People do use that argument to discount warne relative to murali's achievement The argument is generally murali bowled his home matches on spin friendly wicket to dsicount his achievement whilst the murali supporters used the support that warne had in mcgrath, gillespie etc to discount his achievement.
JVGO
Guest
Sobers innings for the World at the MCG in 1970 was the most memorable innings I have ever seen. Also touched him on the arm as a ten year old at the SCG when you could run on the ground at stumps. The guy could bowl spin and medium, hit six sixes in an over and had the world record score. Surely no 2 for Kallis is pretty acceptable.
Glenn Mitchell
Expert
Does that mean you would discount Warne's performances because he bowled behind the likes of McGrath, Gillespie and Lee? How many players during the Waugh/Ponting era would you select in a World XI given they were all members of great teams. Do you discount Gilchrist's batting because he followed Hayden, langer, Ponting, Clarke, Hussey, Katich etc? I hope not.
Heff
Guest
Yep, Warnie is the first 15 kilo overweight, smoking, pizza eating drug cheat. If he wasn't playing cricket he most certainly would have been on the US Postal Cycling team. If Warne didn't have that diuretic he clearly would have been a rubbish bowler.....Sorry Bob, if you're going to make stupid comments, expect stupid replies.
ak
Guest
I will also go for a bowling all-rounder. And just like you Imran is the guy I would want to have if given a choice.
Heff
Guest
Great point ak. For mine, I'd prefer a bowling all rounder over a batting one any day, such is the difficulty in getting top quality batsman out. Imran, Hadlee both will walk into any team of any era as a front line bowler. Hadlee was unpopular at times within his own team so that goes against him but his talents were second to none. Imran the better bat anyway so he's my pick.
Jason
Guest
Yes.
kh
Guest
Kallis is not adaptable enough to be classed amongst the greatest. He's too slow and can't adapt his batting pace to the circumstances of the game. As for his bowling he benefits from playing in such a good team. The likes of Donald, Pollock and now Steyn and Morkel apply pressure from one end which Kallis benefits from. People forget how psychological a sport cricket is. Kallis has really reaped the benefits of playing in a good team. If I was choosing a world XI of all time Kallis wouldn't be in it.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
The question is would you pick Gary Sobers for a one 50 over game?
Brewski
Guest
No helmet or .... a box !!.
Brewski
Guest
Best cricketer ever .... Keith Miller.
Neuen
Roar Rookie
Looking at his strike rate not many have picked up the following Strike rate without Amla in the team - 42.38 http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/45789.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=batting_strike_rate;player_involve=9952;player_involve_type=none;template=results;type=batting Strike rate with Amla in the team - 51.66 http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/45789.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=batting_strike_rate;player_involve=9952;template=results;type=batting Clearly Kallis was held back thanks due the fact that South Africa struggled to find a stable no. 3
dasilva
Roar Guru
Kallis average minus bangladesh and zimbabwe 54.84 with the bat and 35.61 with the ball this is probably more of an accurate representation of his skills which is clearly still an world class all arounder who should be a contender with sober as the best batting all rounder but you can't just say he is conclusively better simply by looking at his career average