A master of the game

Cricket folklore would always have Sir Gary Sobers as the greatest allrounder — and Jacques Kallis would be the first person to acknowledge it. However, it is a testimony to the South African’s longevity and class which has thrown open the current debate as to who would be the greatest allrounder of all times. “You cannot compare any cricketer who played about forty years ago. Sobers is the greatest allrounder the world has ever produced. The conditions, opposition attack, the game — all have changed over the years. I can bat and bowl like him but please do not compare me with him,” he said in a recent interview with Gulf News. Be it Test cricket, One-day Internationals or Twenty20, Kallis is one of the toughest batsman to dismiss while as a bowler — he is the toughest to score runs off and he can even wreck any batting line up. Kallis has done well in all three formats and has an average of 56.78 in Test matches, 45.26 in One Day Internationals and 35.81 in Twenty20 matches. In One-dayers and Tests, he has bagged over 270 wickets. He had been a match-winner for all the teams that he plays for but never demonstrates his success with dramatic gestures. Though it was Manvinder Bisla who hogged the limelight in the final of the Indian Premier League, it was Kallis’s fighting knock and his tight bowling that helped Kolkata Knight Riders emerge as the new IPL champions. Article continues below During an interview with him at St Lucia I asked him about the secret of his success and he said: “Nothing at all. Whatever I do, I do it properly. I try and give my 100 per cent.” When pressed again as to what motivates him, he said: “I read books. My favourite one is ‘It’s Not About The Bike’, a story about the world famous biker Lance Armstrong.” No wonder, Kallis keep riding towards more glory year after year. No allrounder in today’s cricket is so perfect a batsman like Kallis and is the mainstay of a nation’s batting line up. However, replying to a question as to what gives him a bigger kick - batting or bowling during a Chevrolet Cricket Show here - Kallis promptly said: “I see myself as a batting allrounder. For me being an allrounder is playing good cricket and that is what I have attempted to do all my life.” The burden of being an allrounder has deprived him of the captaincy of South Africa and Kallis has no regrets about it. “I am one who loves to play my game and not worry about whether I am the captain or not. It is tough for allrounders to be captains. Allrounders have so much to do that it would be impossible to worry about 14 other people too,” he said. The number of records he has shattered over the years is enormous but he values performing for his team more than breaking records. “My goal is always to play a match winning knock or produce a spell that can tilt the match.” No wonder, Kallis is the most sought after player in world cricket today. caption From gulfnews