The Jacques Kallis summer
Brad Morgan
6 February 2004
"When Kallis left the field", said West Indies captain Brian Lara, "I went across to him and told him that it was the best batting in a series, Test and one-dayers, that I have, in my playing career, ever witnessed. Six hundreds in 11 innings has to be admired. He was awesome."
That's no small compliment coming from a man who holds the record for the highest first class score ever, 501, and who was for quite some time also the record holder for the highest score in a Test innings with 375.
Interestingly, though, Jacques Kallis' Test and one-day international career averages are both superior to those of the West Indian great.
The West Indies' summer tour of South Africa will be remembered above all else for the extraordinary performances of Kallis.
The Western Province all-rounder delivered consistently and with excellence in both Test matches and one-day internationals, and by the end of the islanders' tour they must have been
thankful for relief from the nightmare sight of Kallis walking to the crease.
Exceptional
On completion of the West Indian tour, Kallis was averaging 53.26 with the bat in Test match cricket from 75 matches played. An average of 40 is considered good, 45 is very good, and 50 excellent, so Kallis is now into the area of the exceptional.
Anyone who saw his untroubled performances throughout the summer would realise that this man is just that: exceptional.
In one day cricket he is now averaging just shy of 47 runs an innings.
In the shorter form of the game Kallis has, throughout the course of his career, come in for some criticism about his so-called inability to raise his scoring tempo. That is one criticism that he convincingly dealt with in the series against the Caribbean cricketers. He smashed 361 runs in five innings, and was not out on three occasions, for an average of 180.50.
Critically, though, he scored his
runs at the splendid rate of 93.04 per 100 balls faced.
Of even greater importance than his scoring rate was his runs' tally, which was 151 more than the next highest scorer in the series, Shivnarine Chanderpaul. It emphasised the gap in class that Kallis established over the rest of the players in a special summer.
Amazingly, the 28-year-old was also one of the best performers with the ball in the ODI series. He picked up six wickets at the miserly rate of 17.50 a wicket, including a best haul of 3 for 8.
World record
The plain numbers speak volumes for Kallis. He scored a world record for a four-Test series of 712 runs at the astonishing average of 178, including centuries in each of the four matches. His one-day international exploits were mentioned above, and are remarkably similar to his Test feats, which show off the incredibly high standard of his consistency.
Kallis is now the highest run scorer for South Africa in
one-day internationals, taking over at the top from Gary Kirsten, who these days confines himself to Test cricket. Kallis' total now stands at 6 858 runs, including 12 centuries and 46 fifties. How many more innings will be needed for 7 000 runs? One? Two?
Kallis stated the obvious when he said: "I'm playing the best cricket of my career". No doubt about that; the standards he attained during the summer have seldom, if ever, been scaled before.
Regarded by many as the world's finest all-rounder, Kallis ended his sensational summer with a match-winning innings in the final one-day international at The Wanderers to secure a three-one series triumph for South Africa.
Career best
Chasing a very testing 305 for victory, the Proteas fell some way behind the required run rate, but with Kallis lending a guiding hand they managed to win with two balls to spare.
His contribution was a career best limited overs international score of
139, scored off of just 142 balls. It was, Kallis admitted, one of the finest innings of his career.
It kept a capacity crowd of 28 000 at The Wanderers in joyous voice throughout, helping to stir up an enthralling atmosphere that both the West Indian and South African teams said afterwards made for one of the finest theatres in which they had ever played cricket.
It was a fine finish to a series that was played in a wonderful spirit by both teams.
Throughout the summer it must have been an awful feeling for the bowlers in the West Indian attack; their reward for removing one of the Proteas’ openers would be Kallis, walking purposefully to the crease. The way he played the best they could throw at him, seldom looking hurried or ruffled, must have been torture for the bowlers, but it was magic for South African cricket fans, and also for those fans of the game itself.
The summer of 2004 will long be remembered for that Kallis magic.
By the way, Kallis is
not only a winner on the field. His girlfriend off of it is Miss South Africa Cindy Nel. Hey, Jacques, how about giving me six numbers so I can play the lottery?
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