Where does Kallis rate as a batsman alone?

[Mike5181]

Splutters and spills coffee everywhere.

It was a fair statement. He contributes in all areas of the game.

 

[ankitj]

Yeah, isn't it remarkable that immediately following the retirement/decline of some great fast bowlers and flattening of pitches how so many batsmen like Inzamam, Ponting, Kallis, Dravid, Jayawardene etc. etc. all become much better players.

Must be top billing for 'Coincidence of the Century' award.

+1

At the end of 90's only four of the then active batsmen averaged 50+. Tendulkar (high 50's) and Waugh, Flower and Dravid (low 50's)

 

[Zinzan]

Overall he's a better cricketer than Tendulkar, Lara or Ponting.

As a batsman he's somewhere in the top 20, but there's a lot of personal opinion which comes into play there.

Agree entirely with the above

 

[vcs]

+1

At the end of 90's only four of the then active batsmen averaged 50+. Tendulkar (high 50's) and Waugh, Flower and Dravid (low 50's)

Dravid was a much more valuable batsman in the '00s though, he cashed in in some fairly low-profile series in the '90s and failed on the big tests (eg. Australia away in '99).

 

[ankitj]

Dravid was a much more valuable batsman in the '00s though, he cashed in in some fairly low-profile series in the '90s and failed on the big tests (eg. Australia away in '99).

True.

But it is still worth pondering how much this whole lot of 50+ average batsmen be averaging if the quality of pitches and the bowlers in last decade was same as that in 90's

 

[vic_orthdox]

Kallis averaged 47 in matches involving either one of Walsh or Ambrose, and 44 in which both featured. Both of them were nearing their career ends by that time regardless.

And they were both very good bowlers till the end, really.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah, but you're not taking into account that if Ponting was South African he also would have been a lot uglier, and that surely would have had some impact on his confidence levels, affecting his ability to bat.

It's a ridiculous argument to even try to have.

It is only ridiculous because you are comparing apples to oranges... Kallis NEVER faces the bowlers Ponting and Sachin do in RSA and Ponting and Sachin NEVER face the bowles Kallis does in RSA.. How does it prove anything other than the fact that he stands out among the batsmen to have played FOR RSA in the last 15-20 years.....

 

[weldone]

It is only ridiculous because you are comparing apples to oranges... Kallis NEVER faces the bowlers Ponting and Sachin do in RSA and Ponting and Sachin NEVER face the bowles Kallis does in RSA.. How does it prove anything other than the fact that he stands out among the batsmen to have played FOR RSA in the last 15-20 years.....

I think I agree with this logic. Facing the likes of Donald, Steyn and Pollock on South African pitches is a different ball-game altogether.

 

[Bun]

I think I agree with this logic. Facing the likes of Donald, Steyn and Pollock on South African pitches is a different ball-game altogether.

The fact that Kallis averages more at home than his fellows is not necessarily because he is the better player against better attacks, but that he cashed in massively better than the others against weaker attacks

 

[weldone]

The fact that Kallis averages more at home than his fellows is not necessarily because he is the better player against better attacks, but that he cashed in massively better than the others against weaker attacks

It's the quality of a champion cricketer to demolish weaker oppositions.

Both Dale Steyn and Lonwabo Tsotsobe can look helpless when a Sachin is scoring a ton against them- doesn't mean that they're bowlers of similar calibre. When they bowl to a Raina or a Marcus North, you can watch for 2 overs, and you know who the better bowler is. The way Muttiah Muralitharan demolished Zimbabwean and Bangladeshi lineups (or Clarrie Grimmett demolished NZ and WI lineups) could not have been expected from Ajit Agarkar or Mohammad Sami. That's why it's always a good idea to judge bowlers by watching how quickly, convincingly and consistently they demolish the opposition tails. That's why even when Ishant Sharma apparently caused some problems to Ricky Ponting 3 or 4 times, he never really came across as a very good bowler to me because I've never witnessed him demolishing opposition tails quickly and convincingly.

 

[Bun]

It's the quality of a champion cricketer to demolish weaker oppositions.

Both Dale Steyn and Lonwabo Tsotsobe can look helpless when a Sachin is scoring a ton against them- doesn't mean that they're bowlers of similar calibre. When they bowl to a Raina or a Marcus North, you can watch for 2 overs, and you know who the better bowler is. The way Muttiah Muralitharan demolished Zimbabwean and Bangladeshi lineups (or Clarrie Grimmett demolished NZ and WI lineups) could not have been expected from Ajit Agarkar or Mohammad Sami. That's why it's always a good idea to judge bowlers by watching how quickly, convincingly and consistently they demolish the opposition tails. That's why even when Ishant Sharma apparently caused some problems to Ricky Ponting 3 or 4 times, he never really came across as a very good bowler to me because I've never witnessed him demolishing opposition tails quickly and convincingly.

Nicely put. The key being champion cricketers succeed against all oppositions and terrifically against the weaker ones. Kallis however fails on the first count imo. He is a modern day great but a level below the absolute greats like Sachin, Bradman, etc

 

[Jono]

Yeah, that's a definite qualification to the link I posted, but his record is so good that the point still stands. Kallis has sustained for fifteen years a level of batting that pretty much no other player has even been able to match over five or six matches.



This is where you lose me. You're comparing Kallis's 6,000 runs @ 58 in by far the world's most difficult country to bat in to the theoretical runs you reckon Tendulkar or Ponting might have scored if they'd played for SA there. Considering that their career averages against by and large the same world attacks on much flatter pitches are both lower than Kallis's record in SA, on what grounds can you possibly make such a claim?

Besides, it reduces an argument to absurdity when you say things like this. Turning Ponting or Tendulkar South African changes everything, and will inevitably lead to someone saying "... but if Kallis was Indian/Australian/Mormon". You can only look at what players did, not what you think they would have done in a different era/country/helmet.

Uhh, the argument isn't "what if Ponting/Sachin was South African?"

It's if they played SL and WI bowlers on SA pitches they would make minced meat of them. There is no doubt about it.,

Have you seen Kallis' record against Australia in South Africa? It is not pretty. In fact, it is incredibly bad.

So good on him for piling on the runs against other teams consistently. But on South African soil he fails against the best fast bowlers he's ever faced in Australia, on top of NEVER facing Steyn, Donald, Pollock or Ntini.

That puts his success in perspective, because everytime Ponting and Sachin batted in SA they faced those fast bowlers.

 

[0RI0N]

So much fail ITT, and especially in the post above.
You know poster's are clutching at straws when they are argueing hypothetical scenarios.
Kallis isn't great because he didn't face SA test bowlers. The F is a South African Batsman supposed to face South African Bowlers ín a test match.
By this logic Viv wasn't great because he dìdn't face WI bowlers.77 tests 21 100's and
6425 runs @ 59.50 with N0NE of his team mates even approaching those numbers.
Almost double the runs of G Kirsten, who has scored the 2nd most test runs in SA.
More than Double the number of 100s of G Smith and H Gibbs who scored the 2nd most 100s in SA
To quote Prince EWS: haters can suck it.

 

[Ikki]

You're missing Jono's point I reckon. S.Africa is a hard place to bat because the pitches are good and their bowlers are good. If the pitches are good and the bowlers aren't...how much praise are you going to attribute to Kallis for beating the daylights of the lesser sides? His average against the best bowling sides of his day is 44 at home.

 

[vcs]

You're missing Jono's point I reckon. S.Africa is a hard place to bat because the pitches are good and their bowlers are good. If the pitches are good and the bowlers aren't...how much praise are you going to attribute to Kallis for beating the daylights of the lesser sides? His average against the best bowling sides of his day is 44 at home.

I don't see how you can arbitrarily include SL and not India in the best bowling sides. He has also scored big at home against some excellent English and WI attacks of the '90s as pointed out earlier in this thread.

Personally, I think his home record against Australia is probably the one blot on his resume, but meh, no one's perfect.

 

[Ikki]

When I refer to the top bowling sides I am talking about the ones that gave the least runs away and took wickets faster. India does not count - as I explained elsewhere, they are closer to NZ and WI than Pakistan. India may leak a lot of runs with their attack and still win, but that says nothing accurately about the difficulty of scoring against them.

Scoring a ton here and a ton there, even against notable attacks, is not something to tout when they are few in number and when the difference between how he performs against the best and the worst attacks are so vast. When people mention the difficulty of batting in S.Africa they are trying to establish a quality on the runs he scored. If he has scored so many of his runs against the lesser attacks how does that really reflect on the quality of those runs? Not well, really.

 

[vcs]

When I refer to the top bowling sides I am talking about the ones that gave the least runs away and took wickets faster. India does not count - as I explained elsewhere, they are closer to NZ and WI than Pakistan. India may leak a lot of runs with their attack and still win, but that says nothing accurately about the difficulty of scoring against them.

Scoring a ton here and a ton there, even against notable attacks, is not something to tout when they are few in number and when the difference between how he performs against the best and the worst attacks are so vast. When people mention the difficulty of batting in S.Africa they are trying to establish a quality on the runs he scored. If he has scored so many of his runs against the lesser attacks how does that really reflect on the quality of those runs? Not well, really.

OK.. you think any of SL's attacks that have toured SA were better than the Indian attack on this tour (forget the first Test, where India's attack performed worse than Bangladesh). I'm just asking you why they qualify as a quality attack and not India. It seems suspiciously like you threw them in there because he averages in the low 30's against them at home.

 

[akilana]

The touring batsmen didn't face the "best" bowling attack(Australia) in SA. The excuse is that Australia at home could well be his bogey team like SA is for Sachin and India away for Ponting. He did really well against the Ashes winning England team in their peak in 2004 and rest of all the good attacks that visited SA since 1999, except Australia. I noticed he doesn't have great record against SL either but hardly played them since he reached his peak. SA conditions make the lesser bowlers look like seasoned veterans.. and we saw how useful Sreesanth was in SA.

The SA attack almost always had one or two world class bowlers and two duds in their attack. Even the current attack with awesome Dale Steyn isn't rated to be as good as England by many here because of the lack of good 3rd and 4th bowlers. Just to undermine Kallis's awesome record, people are now trying to over-rate SA bowlers here.

 

[Ikki]

You may have missed my post where I referred to the "top 5 attacks" during Kallis' and Ponting's career. In order, they are: Australia, S.Africa, SL, England and Pakistan. So no, I didn't just throw them in there.

 

[akilana]

India wasn't included but SL was because Ponting failed in India and Kallis dosn't have a great record against SL. It suits the agenda.