Full Name

Jacques Henry Kallis

Born

October 16, 1975, Pinelands, Cape Town, Cape Province

Age

48y 155d

Batting Style

Right hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Fast medium

Playing Role

Allrounder

No batsman prizes his wicket more highly, and no wicket in all of cricket is more highly prized. Jacques Kallis is the broad-shouldered colossus of the South African team, a figure whose looming presence inspires calm in some and dread in others.

Few players who belong to the modern age are a better fit for the notion of the classical cricketer. Kallis is a fine, forceful batsman who has at his disposal both a rock-solid technique and a mind impervious to distraction. Though his role as a bowler diminishes with each passing season, he will be remembered as a purveyor of sometimes surprising pace and swing, and awkward bounce. In the slips, his sure-handedness and rattlesnake reflexes make ridiculous catches look regulation.

Kallis announced himself as a batsman of international stature in his seventh Test, the drawn Boxing Day epic at Melbourne in 1997, when he scored a fighting 101 on a worn last-day pitch. Not even Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne could dislodge him before he had all but saved the match for South Africa.

Over the years Kallis has delivered many such innings, performances in which grit is a far more valuable commodity than glitz to a South African team that remains more confident in the field and with its fast bowlers in full cry than as a batting unit. Kallis has willingly shouldered the role of the fulcrum around which the wheel must try to turn. But, occasionally, he has unfurled a stroke of startling aggression that hints at what might have been.

Certainly, his lofted drive, which begins with a menacing backlift before uncoiling into the irresistible momentum of a mighty downward swoop of the bat and finishing in a twirl of Baroque, might be described as Mozart in motion. In the lightning flash of that fleeting instant it really does seem as if Kallis could, in the words of one observer, hit a six whenever he felt like it.

His critics, particularly those who have a limited understanding of the dynamics of the South African team, accuse him of not dominating attacks he has already ground into the dust, of unnecessarily slow scoring, and of failing to take the match situation into account as he plots his innings. All of which hints at selfishness, which is quite ironical, because his team-mates vouch for the fact that Kallis bats the way he does precisely because he puts his team first and his personal ambitions some way behind. It's the only way he knows how.
Telford Vice

Jacques Kallis Career Stats

Batting & Fielding

FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAveBFSR100s50s4s6sCtSt
Tests166280401328922455.372890345.9745581488972000
ODIs328314531157913944.361588572.8917869111371310
T20Is252346667335.05558119.3505562070
FC257421571969522454.10--6297--2640
List A4244066514845155*43.53--23109--1620
T20s17617128441697*30.883927112.45032437100540

Bowling

FormatMatInnsBallsRunsWktsBBIBBMAveEconSR4w5w10w
Tests1662722023295352926/549/9232.652.8269.2750
ODIs3282831075086802735/305/3031.794.8439.3220
T20Is2519276333124/154/1527.757.2323.0100
FC257-29033135324276/54-31.692.7967.9-80
List A424-13673107723515/305/3030.684.7238.9330
T20s176150274734821144/154/1530.547.6024.0200
Jacques Henry Kallis

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Milind Kumar and Jacques Kallis added 158 in just 9.4 overs
Jacques Kallis plays a drive
Jacques Kallis of South Africa bats for World Giants
Joe Root picks England batting consultant Jacques Kallis' brain
Jacques Kallis has joined up as South Africa's batting coach
Quinton de Kock bats under the watchful eye of Jacques Kallis