Jacques Kallis      

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

• December 1995-January 1996
  A slow start
  • An ordinary debut in a rain-hit Test in Durban. Kallis lasted just 12 balls for one run in his only innings. His performance in his next few games was hardly a sign of things to come, averaging 8.14 in his first five Tests. However, his 3 for 29 in the nerve-wracking moments of the Port Elizabeth Test against Australia gave him the much-needed recognition as a bowler.
    
• December 26-30, 1997
  First Test century
  • Scores his first Test century, against Australia in Melbourne. A gutsy second-innings 101 under pressure saves South Africa from defeat as Kallis bats out the last day.
    
• January 16, 1998
  First ODI ton
  • Scores his maiden ODI century, 111 against New Zealand at the WACA. South Africa win convincingly.
    
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• June-August 1998
  Shining in England
  • Averages 42 with the bat in South Africa's first tour of England since re-admittance. His four-wicket haul at Lord's helps bundle out England and ensures an easy ten-wicket win. He goes past his highest Test score at Old Trafford, scoring 132 as his side pile on a mammoth 552.
    
• October-November 1998
  The big-match player
  • Shows his all-round skills in ODIs during the Wills International Cup (which later became the ICC Champions Trophy) in Dhaka. Scores an attacking 113 off 100 balls in the semi-final and sinks West Indies in the final with 5 for 30, his first five-for.
    
• January 1999
  Butchering the Windies
  • Becomes only the second South African to score a century, fifty and take five wickets in a Test after Aubrey Faulkner. Following his 110 in the first innings against West Indies in Cape Town,
    
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• February-March 2000
  India conquered
  • Adaptability is the feature of Kallis' batting in his maiden tour of India, where he shows his skills against the turning ball. Falls five short of a well deserved ton in Bangalore and picks up the Man-of-the-Series award in South Africa's successful series in India.
    
• July-August 2000
  Blunting the spinners
  • Perhaps Kallis's most valuable innings under pressure, with the spinners on a rampage. Trailing 0-1 in the series, Kallis's dogged 87 in the second innings in Kandy on a turning track makes the difference, as South Africa overcame a first-innings deficit to win by 7 runs.
    
• November 2000
  The first of many 150s
  • Maiden 150, against New Zealand in Bloemfontein , in his 40th Test.
    
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• September 2001
  Falling short of a double
  • Highest Test score, against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo. Kallis scores an undefeated 189 and is the victim of yet another declaration, denying him a double-hundred. Kallis isn't dismissed throughout the two-Test series and ends with an average of 388, occupying the crease for 1028 minutes in all.
    
• November 2001
  3000 runs and 100 wickets
  • Kallis' wicket of Sachin Tendulkar in the second innings of the Bloemfontein Test is his 100th in Tests and in doing so, he becomes the eighth to complete the double of 3000 runs and 100 wickets.
    
• August 2003
  The six-for that sinks England
  • At Headingley, Kallis achieves his best bowling figures in Tests with 6 for 54 to destroy England in their second innings and complete a 191-run win. South Africa take an unassailable 2-1 lead in the series.
    
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• December 2003-March 2004
  Dealing in centuries
  • The dream run, from Johannesburg to Hamilton - 158, 177, 130*, 130*, 150* - three-figure scores in five consecutive Tests, a record which places him below only the great Don Bradman. In four Tests against West Indies, Kallis piles on 712 runs at an average of 178. In the second Test in Durban, Kallis goes past the 5000-run mark and becomes the fourth player in history to achieve the double of 5000 runs and 150 wickets in Tests, putting him in the top bracket of all-time best allrounders.
    
• March 2005
  The fastest ever Test fifty from Kallis? You heard that right
  • Not the sort of record one would associate with his style of batting. But in an astonishing day's play with the batsmen making merry against a depleted Zimbabwe attack at Newlands, he breaks the record for the fastest fifty in Tests, off 24 balls, which included five sixes and three fours.
    
• April 2005
  South Africa's highest Test run-getter
  • During his 147 against West Indies in Antigua, Kallis goes past Gary Kirsten's record for most runs scored by a South African in Tests. Kirsten retired with 7289 runs.
    
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• October 2005
  Cricket's Oscars
  • At the ICC Awards in Melbourne, the decision is unanimous. Kallis' superb run in Tests gets him two awards - he is named the Test Player of the Year and the Joint Player of the Year, which he shares with Andrew Flintoff. He ends 2005 with 1288 runs, his best returns in a calendar year.
    
• March 2006
  The stand-in skipper
  • Filling in for the injured Graeme Smith, Kallis captains his side in a Test for the first time. He is just a couple of wickets away from a dream start, as Australia hold their nerve in a thriller at the Wanderers.
    
• April 2006
  The centurion in Centurion
  • Yet another milestone for Kallis as he plays his 100th Test, against New Zealand in Centurion. Incidentally, Stephen Fleming and Shaun Pollock celebrate the same milestone in the same game.
    
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• May 2006
  Going past Sir Garry
  • In the second Test of that series, in Johannesburg, Kallis surpasses Sir Garry Sobers' record of 8032 Test runs and becomes only the second player, after Sobers, to achieve the double of 8000 runs and 200 wickets.
    
• March-April 2007
  Good World Cup, but…
  • Kallis finishes as South Africa's leading run-scorer in the World Cup with 485 runs. But his slow scoring costs him a place in the World Twenty20 the same year.
    
• October 2007
  Tormenting Pakistan
  • After dominating Pakistan in the home series in 2006-07, he does the same in their own backyard, scoring three centuries in the two-Test series. South Africa win the series 1-0 and Kallis walks away with the Man-of-the Series prize.
    
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• February 2008
  A forgettable IPL
  • The IPL comes calling. Bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for $900,000 but has a very disappointing season with the bat, which mirrors the team's performance.
    
• January-February 2009
  10,000 Test runs
  • Goes past the 10,000-run mark in Tests and ODIs in the twin-series against Australia in 2008-09. He reaches the ODI landmark first in Sydney, and then the Test landmark at the Wanderers.
    
• April-May 2009
  Kallis Reinvented
  • Shines in the second season of the IPL, in South Africa, by hitting 361 runs in 15 games at a strike-rate of 108.73 (compared to the 199 runs he scored for them in 11 matches in 2008).
    
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• December 29, 2011
  Zero sum game
  • In his 149th Test match, Kallis bags his first pair, against Sri Lanka in Durban. South Africa lose by 208 runs.
    
• January 4, 2012
  Unforgettable 150th Test
  • Kallis becomes the first batsman to score 150-plus in his 150th Test. He goes on to score 224, his second double-century and his highest score in Test cricket.
    
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