Kallis retires from Tests

[Zinzan]

To be fair, he's also a better actor than Brando; a better scientist than Einstein; a better polymath than Da Vinci.

This place is the ****ing pits.

Way to argue your point.

And incidentally you didn't answer the question about Sobers

 

[GuyFromLancs]

Way to argue your point.

And incidentally you didn't answer the question about Sobers

Sorry, i did misread your message about Hadlee.

Sobers, on the cusp between batting allrounder and allrounder. If he stuck to seam he'd be all-allrounder

 

[DDP]

**** there has been some idiotic posting here. Wasn't Kallis first selected as an opening bowler? An average of 32 when your mostly bowling with the old ball is very very good really. I remember watching him in the last SA tour of NZ, and being more scared of him than Steyn or Morkel, because he just would not let the pressure relent, and you just knew that one of our batsmen would die trying to get out of jail as a result.

What a player, test cricket will surely miss him.

Good point, and is something a frontline bowler such as anderson wouldn't have had to do.

 

[bagapath]

Dear JK,

Just logged in after months only to register my sincere apologies for all the years of lazy bitching about your slow batting...

Congrats JK. You had three careers rolled into one. You were the perfect third seamer and the best slip catcher who "incidentally" happened to be the best no.4 in the game for 17 years across all three formats. Thanks for the great memories...

....just wish you weren't so boring for the first 10 years plus... Sigh.....

 

[NasserFan207]

Not sure whether this is agreeing with the infamous guyfromlancs or not but I would argue that bowling allrounders tend to be quite a bit more exciting/dynamic to watch than their batting counterparts.

Has no real relevance to this discussion though. But it does explain why Kallis gets somewhat underrated. People will generally prefer players they were most entertained by.

 

[the big bambino]

I love this place. Offer an opinion and all sorts of ****knockers throw insults in.

Jesus!

tbf its more trolling than an opinion and ****knockers is an insult ironically enough.

 

[Johnners]

Didn't much like him, but an unquestionably great cricketer. Well played Jacques

 

[smash84]

People constantly remedied us that Imran in the last 10 years of his career averaged 50 with the bat and 20 with the ball, they fail to include that those wickets a me at first or second change and he wasn't near the bowler he was before the injury and the wickets came at about 2 WPM. They also fail to acknowledge that if he averaged over 50 with the bat over the last 10 years, when as stated above he wasn't the same as a bowler, and ended his career with an average of 37, how much did he average with the bat prior to the injury and how effective a top order batsman he was.
.

What the ****

Stop pulling figures out of your ass.

All-round records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

These are his numbers after returning from injury. How in hell is this 2 wpm?

Stop throwing around concocted numbers and passing them along as fact.

 

[akilana]

He definitely had it easier coming on to bowl after Donald, Pollock, Ntini, Steyn, Morkel, Philander (I realize not all played together) had blown away the top order or had softened them up. This may or may not reflect in the numbers (in the case of Zaheer vs Kallis, it definitely does) but it is certainly an argument worth pondering over. The workload he had was nowhere near as much as 'proper' front-line bowlers viz. Anderson, Zaheer et al; hence it would be unfair on both to compare them purely on averages (as Tendulkar+Zaheer seems to suggest). You could also split hairs and argue he was more likely to get to bowl in a relatively easy situation/used more in suitable conditions/taken off the attack when hammered etc.(luxuries that premier strike bowlers do not have, in short).

He compares favourably with the great all rounders and he is an ATG, no objections there. Gotta agree to disagree on the Lara/Ponting thing. To me they were definitely better batsman by a margin not negligible enough to make me consider the other added advantages they brought to the table. By a better margin I don't mean a Bradman vs Martin type margin, just a clear and definite margin. If I didn't have enough 5th bowling options or the front-line bowlers were utter crap, then I'd probably go Kallis.

Well what you said about him having it easier wrt to his bowling is not true. He competes with Steyn and Co for wickets and on good pitches he was unlikely to get a bowl. He was often turned to when SA were a bit struggling for wickets. In other words, he was asked to bowl more often when the premier bowlers were not able to buy wickets. Also in his wickets column, so many good batsmen top the list.

I'm not going to get into this batting debate. I rank him along with Ponting and just below Lara and Sachin. Rate Sanga ahead of Dravid. Dravid was even more boring than Kallis.

 

[akilana]

I've always had the impression that the SA players are more like the SC teams in that they tend to value WC wins and even ODIs in general a lot more than say, Australia or England. You only had to hear Abd gushing about the "away series win" after winning the ODI series v Pakistan in the UAE, really. I can understand why Kallis would like to play ODIs more than tests now - a WC win will properly çomplete his career from his own POV now that SA have been at the top of the test rankings for quite a while. However, I do think SA can do without Kallis in ODI's more than in tests.

nah that's just BS. Kallis has often said that his 3 goals in cricket was to win in England and Australia and win a WC. He just wants to win a WC. It's just that simple.

 

[subshakerz]

What a great player, this era of the 90s is almost officially over, the only one left is Chanderpaul.

Compare his understated way of retiring with all the hoopla over Tendulkar's retirement. And he was arguably a better player than Tendulkar. Though to be fair, Kallis is only retiring from tests.

 

[Xuhaib]

Did this actually happen?

yeah test match right after spot fixing gate.

 

[Riggins]

link?

 

[Xuhaib]

link?

1st Test: Pakistan v South Africa at Dubai (DSC), Nov 12-16, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

 

[social]

Excellent post.

I agree that while Kallis is behind Lara, Ponting and Tendulkar (and agree that it isn't quite up for debate), not so sure about Dravid. That is is definitely up for debate and I would probably give Kallis the advantage over Dravid and Sangakkara.

One thing that you did omit is the impact of Kallis's slip fielding and while I would give Ponting and Lara a slight edge in that department, it wasn't by a significant margin. He was extremely valuable to S.A in the cordon as well.

Ponting might have been a better all round fieldsman but certainly dropped more slips catches than Kallis whilst Lara simply wasn't in his class

 

[silentstriker]

Coming back to the spirit of a retirement thread, it's going to be awesome to see his last match. Hoping he goes out in style, albeit in a losing cause

 

[Cruxdude]

Coming back to the spirit of a retirement thread, it's going to be awesome to see his last match. Hoping he goes out in style, albeit in a losing cause

Something similar to the Amla test in Kolkatta would be a fitting end for his career

 

[Burgey]

Great cricketer, and as was said on TV here today, SA just lost it's ultimate insurance policy.

One of those players people will look back on in 20 or more years and marvel at his stats and how he did both disciplines so incredibly well.

Well played, Mr Kallis.

 

[Daemon]

Man this thread is a stinker.

Well played Kallis, sincerely hope he does well in this last match.

 

[Johnners]

1st Test: Pakistan v South Africa at Dubai (DSC), Nov 12-16, 2010 | Cricket Scorecard | ESPN Cricinfo

Unless I'm missing something here (quite possible), that's not even remotely close to what Cabinet suggested.