All hail King Kallis

IT WAS 1995. South Africa’s democracy was still in its infancy and the international cricket world had only opened its arms to the newly-named Proteas for just under four years.

Apartheid had swallowed the careers of former greats like Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Dickie Conrad and Saiet Magiet while others like Basil D’Oliviera, Tony Greig and Allan Lamb fled to faraway shores to ply their trades without restriction.

Cricket needed new heroes for the youth of the Rainbow Nation to look up to. The livewire actionfigure of Jonty Rhodes had literally dived into the hearts of the country three years previously when he smashed Inzamam-ul-Haq’s stumps at the 1992 World Cup in Australasia.

However, a truly world-class player had yet to emerge. An individual that could stand beside the world’s best and not give away an inch in terms of class and temperament, while simultaneously upholding an image that could allow him to be the poster-boy of South African cricket.

Enter Jacques Henry Kallis. From his schoolboy days at Wynberg Boys’ High School, there was a sense that he was a special talent.

A slow start initially cast some doubt on whether he would fulfil his true potential but the individual that emerged – who had lost his mother at a tender age and who was reared by a single father – had an inner resolve that soon came the fore. It started with a match-saving century – his first Test hundred – against a Shane Warne-led Australian attack on the final day of the 1997 Boxing Day Test.

There was no stopping Kallis after that feat. The centuries flowed, wickets were gobbled up and catches were taken in the slips with ease. His overall numbers rank him as arguably the greatest allrounder who has ever played the game, with only the West Indian Sir Garfield Sobers being able to lay claim to this title.

Kallis had his detractors, who labelled him as “boring”, but even in that lay his true value as his dependability and calmness was a true asset while cricket was still in the process of dodging minefields on the field and in the boardroom.

Jacques Kallis, you are a living legend of South African sport, and we salute you.