Jacques Kallis: Greatest Test batsman after Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, best all-rounder since Garry Sobers

Kallis: Best all-rounder since Sobers

Born on October 16, 1975, Jacques Kallis is one of the most influential and respected South African cricketers since the nation’s reintegration to international cricket. With his solid batting and more-than-useful fast-medium bowling, Kallis was the rock around which South African cricket flourished. Shiamak Unwalla takes a look at his numbers and brings out some interesting facts.

There is a reason he is called “King” by his admirers. He ruled South African cricket — and the hearts of cricket fans the world over — for the better part of two decades. His batting was attractive and solid, his bowling deceptively effective, and his catching nigh flawless. Jacques Henry Kallis; Cape Town’s crusader.

Statistically, Kallis is the third greatest Test batsman of all time behind Sachin Tendulkar and Ricky Ponting, though he played two Tests less than Ponting and scored only 89 runs less than him. Given that Kallis was scoring tons right till his final Test, it is likely that had he played two more games, he would have outstripped Ponting. Given below are the 10 leading run-scorers in all Test cricket:

Kallis moves slightly lower down the pecking order in ODIs, but still remains in the list of all-time ODI run-scorers:

Again Tendulkar and Ponting take the top two spots in the ODI list, while Kallis drops to the seventh position. However, in terms of average, Kallis is behind only Tendulkar, though his strike rate is much lower compared to a lot of the others on the list.

Kallis continues to dominate in terms of all-time leading run-scorers across formats. Here again Kallis is eclipsed by that duo of Tendulkar and Ponting, though Kumar Sangakkara finds a place at No 3 ahead of Kallis:

However, the real class of Kallis comes through when one looks at what he brought to the table apart from his excellent batting. He is the only Test cricketer since the legendary Sir Garfield Sobers to score over 6000 runs and take over 200 wickets in the longest format of the game. While the likes of Kapil Dev and Sir Ian Botham were perhaps the better bowling all-rounders, Kallis and Sobers were by far the better batsmen.

Kallis is well and truly among the greatest cricketers of the 21st century. More than his figures though, his mere presence was enough to lift South Africa; he famously said that Australia were 10 runs short after they scored 434 in perhaps the greatest ODI of all time. South Africa went on to chase it down in the final over. There is only so much data figures can give, and Kallis brought more to the table than just runs and wickets. Perhaps that is why he is King.

(Shiamak Unwalla, a reporter with CricketCountry, is a self-confessed Sci-Fi geek and Cricket fanatic. You can follow him on Twitter @ShiamakUnwalla)