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The year 2013 will be remembered for the retirement of some great cricketers: Mike Hussey, Sachin Tendulkar, Graeme Swann and now Jacques Kallis.
Tendulkar’s 200th and final Test in Mumbai last month was a Hollywood-Bollywood extravaganza and was over the top.
Swann’s was oh so sudden. Like Hussey’s after the Sydney Test this January, Kallis’s farewell in the Durban Test against India is understated.
Just as Tendulkar is often compared with Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest batsman ever, Kallis is often compared with Sir Garry Sobers, the greatest all time all-rounder.
In the Cape Town Test of January 2007, Kallis became the second all-rounder after West Indies icon Sobers to achieve the Test triple of 8000 runs, 200 wickets and 100 catches.
If Kallis takes one catch in the current Durban Test, he will become the only cricketer to achieve the Test triple of 10,000 runs, 200 wickets and 200 catches.
Statistically, as at 25 December 2013, their statistics appear similar.
Player Tests Runs Average 100s Wickets Average 5w/ Catches
Garry Sobers 93 8032 57.78 26 235 34.03 6 109
Jacques Kallis 165 13174 55.12 44 292 32.53 199
Only Tendulkar has hit more Test centuries (51 in 200 Tests) than Kallis.
Also Kallis is the first to the one-day international (ODI) triple of 10,000 runs, 200 wickets and 100 catches, having amassed 11,574 runs at 44.86, 273 wickets at 31.79 and 129 catches in 325 ODIs.
As Sobers played only one one-day international, we cannot compare the two in the shortened version of the game but at Test level they have run neck and neck.
However, in personality and flamboyance they are poles apart.
Sobers was an extrovert left-hander who oozed crowd appeal and put entertainment above statistics. Without trying to be unkind to Kallis, the right-hander craves for averages rather than accolades.
He guarded his wicket as a fortress á la Trevor Bailey, Bill Lawry, Geoff Boycott and Sunil Gavaskar.
Not that Kallis was selfish, his long tenures at the pitch saved many matches for his team. He preferred ruthless efficiency to adventurous hitting.
And no one can even approach Sobers’s three-in-one bowling style which has put him in a class of his own as an all-rounder.
Although not as different as chalk and cheese, Sobers and Kallis represented different varieties of cheese.
On figures and usefulness for his country, Kallis could be termed the leading all-rounder of the day with his away swingers at about 135 km per hour and sharp slip fielding supplementing his no frills batting at number three or four.
After a tentative start in Test cricket as a 20 year-old in 1995, he made his mark in the Rawalpindi Test against Pakistan in October 1997 when he scored 61. This Test was watched by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh to celebrate Pakistan’s 50th anniversary.
Then in the first Test against Australia in Melbourne two months later, he scored a match-saving 101 in the second innings. Needing 381 runs to win in 122 overs, South Africa managed to survive, thanks to Kallis’s maiden Test century.
His patient innings contained many stylish drives as he ignored a volley of sledging by the frustrated opponents. His stolid defence earned him the man of the match award.
In Sydney in the next match he became Shane Warne’s 300th Test victim.
Although he hit 44 Test centuries, he remembers his 87 against Sri Lanka in Kandy in 2000 with pride as it resulted in a surprise win for his country.
Earlier South Africa had lost the first Test in Galle by an innings (ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan claiming 13 wickets) and crowd came for the second Test in Kandy in droves to see their country clinch the rubber.
Instead, South Africa delivered a knock-out blow on the fourth day to square the series. It was a cliffhanger as the tourists won by seven runs. Trailing by 55 runs in the first innings, South Africa was in trouble at 3 for 50.
But a typical fighting innings from Kallis in four hours on a difficult pitch with a quirky bounce gave them a whiff of success. Sri Lanka needed only 177 to win the Test and the series but lost both the openers Marvan Atapattu and skipper Sanath Jayasuriya for ducks.
They never recovered from this horror start and lost.
After scoring back-to-back centuries in ODIs within two days in June 2003 he said that he was happy because it would boost his father’s morale as he fought cancer.
Usually Kallis showed little emotion after scoring a century, not even after recording his first double century against England in The Oval Test of August 2003. He had batted for seven hours for his 200 and was probably too exhausted to lift and twirl his bat around!
The season 2003-04 proved to be very successful for Kallis when he became only the second player in Test history after Don Bradman to score centuries in five successive Tests.
This was his amazing run sequence against the West Indies: 158 and 44; 177; 73 and 130 not out followed by 130 not out.
Then in his next series against New Zealand he made 92 and 150 not out in Hamilton to complete five centuries in five Tests. He was going for his sixth consecutive ton in Auckland but could make only 40 and 71.
Just 29 more runs in the second innings and he would have equalled Bradman’s record of six hundreds in six Tests. However, in five consecutive Tests in 2003-04, he had amassed 954 runs at 190.80.
Although labelled a slowcoach, he hit the fastest Test fifty by number of balls faced. This was against Zimbabwe in Cape Town in March 2005 when he reached his 50 off 24 balls. Pakistan’s big hitter Shahid Afridi comes next with a 26 ball fifty.
To me, Kallis’ best bowling feat was against the West Indies in the Bridgetown Test of March-April 2002 when he took 6 for 67 and 2 for 34. It was a controversial match which South Africa should have won but for some blatant time-wasting tactics by the home team.
Kallis is one of few cricketers to have scored a century and taken five wickets in an innings in the same Test twice.
The Cape Town Test of January 1999 is remembered as Kallis’ Test. He confirmed himself as an all-rounder when he became only the eighth player in Test history to score both a century and a fifty and take five wickets in an innings in the same match.
South Africa won the toss and batted but opener Gary Kirsten was out to the first ball off Curtly Ambrose and in walked Kallis to face some chin music.
He made 110 and added 235 runs for the third wicket with Daryll Cullinan. Kallis took 2 for 34 as his team led by 194 runs.
He remained not out with 88 in the second knock as skipper ‘Hansie’ Cronje declared, and he narrowly missing the distinction of hitting two tons in a match. Kallis captured 5 for 90 to enable South Africa to win the Test and lead 3-0 in the series.
Man of the match Kallis was on the field for all but four hours of the match, having batted for 12 hours and bowled 42.4 overs.
Mark Boucher compared Kallis’s bowling to Pakistani Wasim Akram’s.
He wrote in The Wisden Cricketer – South Africa edition: “To me, the key to Jacques’s performance as a bowler is his change of pace. Wasim Akram was brilliant at that. He was very difficult to line-up by batsmen. The same is true of Kallis, he can suddenly turn on the heat and bowl at 140 km per hour.”
In 2005 he was honoured as ICC’s Test and overall Player of the Year after all-round performances against the West Indies and England. “Until the emergence of Andrew Flintoff, he was by some distance the leading all-rounder in the world game, capable of swinging the ball sharply at surprising pace off a relaxed run-up,” wrote Cricinfo.
On the Australian tour in 2005-06, he had problems facing Brett Lee’s pace-like-fire in the Melbourne Test.
But he made a patient 111 in the first innings of the Sydney Test in January 2006. His slow unbeaten fifty in the second innings perhaps cost South Africa the match which is remembered for Australian captain Ricky Ponting registering centuries in both innings in his 100th Test.
In the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies he amassed 485 runs (highest for South Africa and fifth highest in the tournament) at 80.83.
His run sequence was 128 not out, 48, 86, 66 not out, 32, 81, 22, 17 not out and 5. But he failed against champion Australia in both the Super-8 and in the semi final and his sluggish approach at the crease drew criticism.
However, the words of Brian Lara must have comforted Kallis. The West Indian legend said “If you want someone to bat for your life, you get Jacques Kallis to bat for your life.”
Encouraged, he was at his supreme best against Pakistan in October 2007, hitting three centuries in two Tests.
In Karachi he stroked 155 and an unbeaten 100 as his country won by 160 runs and followed with 59 and 107 not out in Lahore the following week and was adjudged man of the match for both the Tests and Player of the Series.
In his next two Tests, against New Zealand he continued his prolific run-getting, 29 and 186 in Johannesburg and 131 in Centurion. Thus he totalled 767 runs in four consecutive Tests at an astounding average of 153.40.
Raved Osman Samiuddin in The Wisden Cricketer (UK), “The first [century in Karachi] was the best, a Kallis displaced from his bubble, Kallis as entertainer… Key wickets and a stunning slip catch or two added another layer.”
Neither pace nor spin bothered the burly Jacques ‘Woogie’ Kallis. Nor did top quality batsmen or critics who doubted his all-round ability.
As former colleague Boucher tweetd this week, “And the Test cricketing world says goodbye to another legend, if not the greatest… Cheers ‘Woogie’! U will be missed.”
Added AB de Villiers, “Jacques Henry Kallis, we salute you, #legend #Kingkallis.”
And so say all of us.