Why is Jacques Kallis so disliked?

[Richard]

EXD? Who's that, not seen it before. Guess would be Piscine though.

You've never seen me use it before.

Subject correct, BTW.

 

[Richard]

but its a well known fact that kallis isnt liked much in his team

It is?

 

[Richard]

My dislike of him as a player is largely an aesthetic judgement, really. His standard mode of play doesn’t quicken the pulse & the way he plays on occasion does leave him open to accusations of selfishness; the obvious example being his gloriously one-eyed performance in the fifth test of our last tour when he actually slowed down when he passed 100. To exaggerate his crime, he’s shown he can dismantle inferior attacks when the mood takes him. He creamed yer Zimbas for the fastest ever 50 in tests. Obviously the standard of opposition plays a part, but he seems utterly unwilling to play in any other mode than defence-first against decent bowling attacks.

So you dislike him because he puts his team before the enjoyment of the narrow-minded-pace-of-scoring-is-all-that-matters spectators? Such spectators who ignore the aesthetic beauty of the well-played stroke?

What's your opinion of other slow batsmen (not, of course, that there are many at the current time)?

 

[BoyBrumby]

So you dislike him because he puts his team before the enjoyment of the narrow-minded-pace-of-scoring-is-all-that-matters spectators? Such spectators who ignore the aesthetic beauty of the well-played stroke?

What's your opinion of other slow batsmen (not, of course, that there are many at the current time)?

No, I dislike him as a player because he puts his average before the team. In that fifth test all around him players were trying to acclerate (time being of the essence) but he almost palpably had the smell of the red ink in his nostrils. There's no way he was playing for anything other than his average.

 

[steds]

I rate him very highly as a player.

The area I dont like him in is purely irrational but never-the-less I cant get out of my head.

He has that look about him that screams he should be in a uniform with a sjambok beating down on someone. He just looks like a nasty bastard to me.

The man speaks the truth.

 

[Goughy]

It is?

Ive not heard it. Ill keep my ear to the ground though.

Generally he is very respected in SA even if he may not be worshiped. His benefit year here was massive. National media sponsored it as did large corporations. It was all over the place.

To my knowledge, no other SA cricket has had that type of treatment.

Maybe his teammates are jealous of his shampoo endorsment deals

 

[Richard]

No, I dislike him as a player because he puts his average before the team. In that fifth test all around him players were trying to acclerate (time being of the essence) but he almost palpably had the smell of the red ink in his nostrils. There's no way he was playing for anything other than his average.

No, you perceive he does. On the basis of one single match - against your own team. Which is ludicrous enough.

Then it gets even worse when you realise that even that case is belief-defyingly flawed. Going into that last day, South Africa had no realistic chance whatsoever of winning the game. Not a cat-in-hell. Kallis could've scored 190 off the same number of balls he ended-up facing and they'd still have had nowhere near enough time to knock England over.

That selfishness is nothing more than your own perception - clearly it was not that of his team-mates' in the dressing-room otherwise you can absolutely gurantee that there would've been some fallout. Does Ray Jennings strike you as someone who'd bite his tongue about summat like that? Especially after he was removed from the post?

Most Englishmen had never had any ammunition to accuse Kallis of being selfish before that innings and they lept on it like Peter Atherton and Steve McManaman on cheap aftershave. Australians did the exact same 12 months later, and the case-against there was fundamentally flawed, too.

 

[C_C]

I think Kallis is a good player but there is a reason why his statistics doesnt get him the same kind of attention Sobers/Imran/Lara/Tendulkar etc. gets.
The reason is simple : Kallis has mostly bombed against good bowling attacks - far more than Tendulkar/Lara and somewhat more than Ponting/Dravid have. His record is quite patchy against Murali, Pakistan and Australia as a batsman and as a result, he is never really in the mix for being the 'best' batsman of his time.

Contrast this with Sobers, Tendulkar, Lara, Kapil,Imran,Botham, Hadlee,etc. : The first three were/are the best batsmen of their generation : Sobers indisputably so and the 90-present era is indisputably between either Tendulkar or Lara. Imran and Hadlee were the best bowlers going around for a while (or, along with Marshall, in contention for #1 spot) and Kapil/Botham built their fame around producing consistent allround displays.

His bowling too is mostly restricted to pace-friendly sufraces and he doesn't bowl much at all in matches were the pitch favours the batsmen. Contrast that with Sobers : he actually bowled less in pace-friendly conditions, despite being a fast medium seamer of considerable potency : he'd open the bowling or come first change, pick up 1-2 wickets, throw open the top order and let Griffiths/Hall/Gibbs etc. take care of the rest. Instead, he bowled a lot more on flat wickets (or the rare wicket that took spin) just to eat up overs and give the frontline bowlers a rest.


What hurts Kallis's reputation is that unlike the abovementioned names, Kallis somehow falls short of being the 'best' in any category : He isnt in contest for best batsman of his time or best bowler of his time. He isnt/wasnt considered the most consistent allrounder for a long part of his career- Cairns and Flintoff hold that honour.
Even though he is just as valuable as a Tendulkar or Lara in the team-if not more- the public loves exponents.

 

[jot1]

It's a known fact that kallis isnt liked much in his team

That's not true. He is well liked and much respected. Where on earth did you get your information to allow you to make a statement like that?

 

[BoyBrumby]

No, you perceive he does. On the basis of one single match - against your own team. Which is ludicrous enough.

Then it gets even worse when you realise that even that case is belief-defyingly flawed. Going into that last day, South Africa had no realistic chance whatsoever of winning the game. Not a cat-in-hell. Kallis could've scored 190 off the same number of balls he ended-up facing and they'd still have had nowhere near enough time to knock England over.

That selfishness is nothing more than your own perception - clearly it was not that of his team-mates' in the dressing-room otherwise you can absolutely gurantee that there would've been some fallout. Does Ray Jennings strike you as someone who'd bite his tongue about summat like that? Especially after he was removed from the post?

Most Englishmen had never had any ammunition to accuse Kallis of being selfish before that innings and they lept on it like Peter Atherton and Steve McManaman on cheap aftershave. Australians did the exact same 12 months later, and the case-against there was fundamentally flawed, too.

You're presupposing the correctness of your own argument & using it to support itself. How do you know there wasn't any fall-out? You don't. What was (or was not) said behind closed doors has stayed there so you cannot absolutely guarantee anything. Moreover what sort of sportsman thinks "ah, **** it, we can't win, I'll play for myself."? I'll answer my own question: a selfish one. If there was no chance why did Smith declare? Would not have a few more overs been useful? SA took four wickets in the time they had so could well have caused us some real concern had they had them.

 

[Sanz]

What hurts Kallis's reputation is that unlike the abovementioned names, Kallis somehow falls short of being the 'best' in any category : He isnt in contest for best batsman of his time or best bowler of his time. He isnt/wasnt considered the most consistent allrounder for a long part of his career- Cairns and Flintoff hold that honour.
Even though he is just as valuable as a Tendulkar or Lara in the team-if not more- the public loves exponents.

Sometimes You really post garbage . Since when Flintoff/Cairns became the most consistent allrounders ? Did Imran really play like an allrounder for most of his career ? Yet you will argue to death that he was the best allrounder of his generation. Yeah Kallis isn't in the contest of best bowler of his time, but neither was Kapil/Botham. It is also incorrect to say that he is not in contest with best batsman of his time, because he is very much there with the likes of Dravid/Ponting/Lara/Tendulkar.

What hurts Kallis is that he is a nice guy who just does his job quietly unlike Lara/Ponting. what hurts him is that he is not from Cricket Mad country like India. If Kallis were an Indian he would have been declared best allrounder since Sobers.

 

[wpdavid]

You're presupposing the correctness of your own argument & using it to support itself. How do you know there wasn't any fall-out? You don't. What was (or was not) said behind closed doors has stayed there so you cannot absolutely guarantee anything. Moreover what sort of sportsman thinks "ah, **** it, we can't win, I'll play for myself."? I'll answer my own question: a selfish one. If there was no chance why did Smith declare? Would not have a few more overs been useful? SA took four wickets in the time they had so could well have caused us some real concern had they had them.

And you only had to think back one test to see how a side can collapse in the 4th inngs to lose a test from nowhere. I can't recall the exact figures, but my impression at the time was that if Kallis had got a move on, SA would have had about 10 overs less than we needed to bowl them out in the 4th test. OK, so you wouldn't expect it to happen very often, but what did he have to lose in trying? Writing about the series at the time, I commented that whilst Tresco isn't really in the same league as Kallis, he did give an object lesson in how to seize the moment.

All that being said, I'd love to have someone as good as Kallis in our middle order, and 99% of the time I'd want him to bat exactly the way he does for SA.

 

[C_C]

Since when Flintoff/Cairns became the most consistent allrounders ? Did Imran really play like an allrounder for most of his career ? Yet you will argue to death that he was the best allrounder of his generation. Yeah Kallis isn't in the contest of best bowler of his time, but neither was Kapil/Botham. It is also incorrect to say that he is not in contest with best batsman of his time, because he is very much there with the likes of Dravid/Ponting/Lara/Tendulkar.

You fail to understand my point.
Flintoff/Cairns were more consistent than Kallis in the sense that they were bowling and batting at a decent level day-in-day-out.
My point is, most of the famous players/allrounders were *the* top dawg in one department or another and Kallis really is not in Tendulkar/Lara class owing to the fact that he has not scored nearly enough runs against the high quality of bowling that Tendulkar/Lara dominated.
You may disagree but i am sure you will find that when asked to name the best batsman of the last 17 years, Kallis's name will be far less frequent than Tendulkar and Lara and probably less frequent than Dravid and Ponting too.
This i think impacts his reputation as an allrounder because he isn't a balanced allrounder (ala Kapil/Botham/Flintoff/Miller) but his 'strong suite' doesnt quite add up to the same level as the 'strong suite' of Sobers/Imran.

 

[Richard]

I think Kallis is a good player but there is a reason why his statistics doesnt get him the same kind of attention Sobers/Imran/Lara/Tendulkar etc. gets.
The reason is simple : Kallis has mostly bombed against good bowling attacks - far more than Tendulkar/Lara and somewhat more than Ponting/Dravid have. His record is quite patchy against Murali, Pakistan and Australia as a batsman and as a result, he is never really in the mix for being the 'best' batsman of his time.

Contrast this with Sobers, Tendulkar, Lara, Kapil,Imran,Botham, Hadlee,etc. : The first three were/are the best batsmen of their generation : Sobers indisputably so and the 90-present era is indisputably between either Tendulkar or Lara. Imran and Hadlee were the best bowlers going around for a while (or, along with Marshall, in contention for #1 spot) and Kapil/Botham built their fame around producing consistent allround displays.

His bowling too is mostly restricted to pace-friendly sufraces and he doesn't bowl much at all in matches were the pitch favours the batsmen. Contrast that with Sobers : he actually bowled less in pace-friendly conditions, despite being a fast medium seamer of considerable potency : he'd open the bowling or come first change, pick up 1-2 wickets, throw open the top order and let Griffiths/Hall/Gibbs etc. take care of the rest. Instead, he bowled a lot more on flat wickets (or the rare wicket that took spin) just to eat up overs and give the frontline bowlers a rest.


What hurts Kallis's reputation is that unlike the abovementioned names, Kallis somehow falls short of being the 'best' in any category : He isnt in contest for best batsman of his time or best bowler of his time. He isnt/wasnt considered the most consistent allrounder for a long part of his career- Cairns and Flintoff hold that honour.
Even though he is just as valuable as a Tendulkar or Lara in the team-if not more- the public loves exponents.

None of that is untrue, and not many people would consider Kallis the best at too much.

Yet not many people would consider Brendon Julien the best at much, either. Yet he was incredibly popular, with his team-mates, his opponents, and the general public.

And it's popularity, not skill, that's up for gripes here.

 

[legglancer12]

I dont think people hate him as much as thay dont consider him as great as his stats suggest. He does not compare with the best players IMO as he does not try to Dominate bowling attack's ..... Therefore not a bonafide "Matchwinner"

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

I think part of the reason is that he doesn't score runs in style, if that makes any sense. He doesn't have as many big innings in high profile matches as, say Sachin, Lara, Ponting, Inzamam, and lately Yousuf.

He averages almost 50 against Australia in Australia. And that's over 9 matches. I'd say he's scored a few high profile runs. An average of 75.40 in 8 innings in India. Admittedly he's struggled in India though. But Kallis has certainly played some theoretically high profile innings.

Such a good player that he averages 55podd overall and 54podd away from home. Class.

 

[Goughy]

He averages almost 50 against Australia in Australia. And that's over 9 matches. I'd say he's scored a few high profile runs. An average of 75.40 in 8 innings in India. Admittedly he's struggled in India though. But Kallis has certainly played some theoretically high profile innings.

Such a good player that he averages 55podd overall and 54podd away from home. Class.

Not forgetting that he scored 3 hundreds in 5 tests and averaged 70 against an England attack that would be lauded as the best in the World when it helped defeat Australia just a few months later.

 

[PhoenixFire]

Sleeping eh Kev?

 

[Goughy]

Sleeping eh Kev?

Going now mate I had 1 last check of the forum before heading to bed.

 

[Richard]

You're presupposing the correctness of your own argument & using it to support itself. How do you know there wasn't any fall-out? You don't. What was (or was not) said behind closed doors has stayed there so you cannot absolutely guarantee anything. Moreover what sort of sportsman thinks "ah, have *** with it, we can't win, I'll play for myself."? I'll answer my own question: a selfish one. If there was no chance why did Smith declare? Would not have a few more overs been useful? SA took four wickets in the time they had so could well have caused us some real concern had they had them.

You can use hindsight to prove not much (the chances of another 10-15 overs, say, meaning 6 wickets fall are slim-to-zero), but it's still using hindsight. Fact is, no-one with an once of cricketing logic gave SA a chance going into that last day, too much time had been lost.

What sort of player plays for himself when he realises a game's gone? A sensible one. In my estimation. When there is no lead to be gained by your team, you cannot play for it. So you might as well play for yourself. Some, of course, would prefer you give-up and give your wicket away. That's why people have aimed stupid criticism Pietersen's way for the manner he batted at the end of that WACA Test.

OK, I can't absolutely gurantee there would've been some fallout had there been discontent in the SA dressing-room. But do you seriously think that, once he was no longer contracted to CSA (or even while still - given the nature of the man) Ray Jennings would be one to let something like that rest? If he (and the team in general) felt Kallis had potentially cost them a victory as crucial as any since readmission, d'you honestly believe he'd have remained silent? 'Cos I certainly don't, and I think if you do you're kidding yerself.