CAPE TOWN - Like death and taxes, there was an inevitability about Jacques Kallis’ induction to the International Cricket Council’s Hall of Fame.
The great all-rounder, received that award Sunday along with Australia’s Lisa Sthalekar and Pakistan’s Zaheer Abbas. Kallis played 519 international matches - six of which came for an ICC World XI in 2005 - establishing a statistical mountain that makes him one of the greatest players to strap on pads or lace up boots.
“I certainly did not play the game for any accolades or anything like that, I only wanted to win the games for whoever I was playing for,” said Kallis.
“But it is nice to be recognised when one has succeeded in the sport, it is nice to be recognised by people for something that you have achieved in the game, something that I am really proud of.”
🌟 ICC Hall of Fame 2020: Jacques Kallis 🇿![CDATA[]]>🇦
🔥 10,000 runs and 200 wickets in both Tests and ODIs
🏅 Record 23 Player of the Match awards in Tests
🏏 South Africa's highest run-getter in Tests and ODIs
💪 An all-round legend pic.twitter.com/5sDPlaCcQX
Beyond the numbers however, Kallis created a benchmark for South Africa cricket in the post-isolation period. Where the goal for South African batsmen in the early 1990s was to average 40, Kallis would push that beyond 50, while his 45 Test hundreds are the second most all time behind Sachin Tendulkar’s 51. If he’d stopped being a batsmen, Kallis would already be one of the greats, but he could bowl too, and his 292 Test wickets (one of which came for the World XI) are the sixth most by a South African bowler.
🎖️ #ICCHallOfFame | Class of 2020 ⭐
— ICC (@ICC) August 23, 2020
🇿![CDATA[]]>🇦 Jacques Kallis
🇦![CDATA[]]>🇺 Lisa Sthalekar
🇵![CDATA[]]>🇰 Zaheer Abbas pic.twitter.com/Wtc9qxkTeL
He was very much the rock around which the South African men's team was built for the best part of two decades, providing the selectors with ability to be flexible in how they composed squads and starting teams.
His batting was technically proficient and until the likes of Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers established themselves he always felt the need to stay in the middle, hence an often obdurate approach that led to much criticism.
In his last few years as a Test cricketer, he allowed himself to be more aggressive and he produced some fluent innings that included that much appreciated double hundred against India at SuperSport Park in 2010.
Kallis is the fourth South African to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame after Allan Donald, Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards.
@shockerhess