A contemporary giant

With an aggregate approaching 8000 and an average of more than 56, Jaques Kallis is easily one of the giants of contemporary cricket, and the most prolific batsman that South Africa have ever produced. In a batting line-up that has often had an iffy look to it, Kallis has been the steadying force and their go-to man, even more so since the retirement of Gary Kirsten, the only South African to have played more Tests (101).

Kallis's start in Test cricket was anything but encouraging: 1, 7, 6, 39, 0, 2, 2 - these were the scores for Kallis in his first seven Test innings. His next three fetched him 177 - including his first hundred, in trying circumstances against Australia in 1997-98 - but then followed a prolonged slump, when his next nine Tests fetched 375 runs at 26.78. In fact, it took him all of 22 matches to get to 1000 runs, at which stage his average was a modest 30.87.

As the table below shows, Kallis's stats at the 50-Test mark were fairly ordinary. In his 51st, he crafted an unbeaten 157 against Zimbabwe, and that kickstarted a phenomenal run in which he amassed 660 runs and was dismissed just three times. Since then it has mostly been one almost non-stop run-fest in which he has, on an average, scored a hundred every 2.88 Tests. During this entire period, which started in September 2001, the longest streak without a hundred has been just six matches.

Over the last five-and-a-half years, Kallis has easily been the most prolific batsman in the world, with an average which is four runs higher than his nearest competitor, Ricky Ponting.

And while most batsmen find the going tougher in the second innings, Kallis seems to relish the challenge, averaging nearly 60 (though it helps that out of 68 innings, he has been unbeaten in 21).

Whereas Kallis the batsman has grown in stature with every passing year, Kallis the bowler is clearly on the decline. Once capable of swinging it at around 140 kmph, Kallis is now clearly reluctant to exert himself with the ball. In his last 30 Tests, he only has 45 wickets at nearly 43 apiece. He still remains a force as a bowler, though, as he showed the Australians in the recently concluded series, dismissing all the top-order batsmen except Matthew Hayden at least once in the three Tests. And the 25-run difference between his batting and bowling averages puts him on top of the allrounders list, ahead of even Garry Sobers.

Even though Kallis has been so prolific, a few opposition line-ups have had a fair amount of success against him: against Sri Lanka he averages just 33, and hasn't managed a single hundred in 21 innings, while Australia and Pakistan have also kept him down to less than 40 runs per innings. (Click here for Kallis's career summary.)