Those feelings find resonance amongst aficionados for whom contemplating cricket and life itself without their favourite iconic players is next to impossible. If fans have found familiarity in a player who has remained at the top of his game for the better part of two decades, it has to be attributed to the degree of his commitment and passion to the sport and to the level of fitness demanded at the highest level. Jacques Kallis is one of those rare giants of the game that will leave a huge void as South Africa rebuild their cricket without the familiar sturdy colossus casting his protective shadow over their interests.
Pomp and pageantry are not for him. That would explain why while many a player of his time hung around longer than able if only for a swansong, Kallis has, in his unassuming style, chosen to bow out without fanfare. There was a sense of shock and at the same time, inevitability when Jacques Kallis announced that he was hanging up his boots in all formats of the game – he had retired from international Test cricket over six months ago. The shock was palpable given that South Africa were slated to lose one giant per World Cup with the 2015 edition in Australia-New Zealand expected to mark Jacques Kallis’ farewell from international cricket. Yet Kallis’ decision to retire came six months too soon after a rather sedate single digit showing in the three one day internationals on South Africa’s otherwise successful tour of Sri Lanka.

Some would have attributed Kallis’ ambition for one final World Cup showdown to downright greed that is sometimes the bane of legends past their prime. However, to Kallis, the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 represented one final lung burst of an opportunity to make amends for the national’s passionate  sporting interests that have been hurt sorely by South Africa’s chequered history at the Cricket World Cup. After all, Kallis was the Man of the Match for his five-for with the ball in the only ICC tournament that South Africa have won – the Wills International Cup in 1998 that later went by the name of the ICC Champions Trophy. With South Africa having been stuck rather too conveniently and often harshly and unfairly with the ‘chokers’ tag, given Kallis’ ambitions for the team, it seemed only natural that he would have wanted to bring all the wealth of his experience and skill sets towards South Africa setting the record straight once and for all.

However, even legends have to sometimes come to grips with the inevitability of reality that the gap between desire and execution may be a chasm too wide to bridge. That is precisely what Kallis seemed to have come face to face with in the mirror upon returning from the tour of Sri Lanka where South Africa won the one day internationals series in the Emerald Isles for the first time since the post apartheid era in 1991. And the team did it without a characteristic worthy and weighty performance from the humble all rounder. In Kallis’ case, true to his selfless nature, he did not need the shove of the selectors to tell him it was perhaps his time to go. To be fair, left to themselves, the South African selectors may not have had the courage to make such a huge game changing decision on Kallis’ time knowing the World Cup was round the corner. However, Kallis wanted to win his place in the team for the World Cup on merit, and not solely on the reputation he painfully, and sometimes at the expense of his own personal turmoil, built over two decades.

Only a player true to his game and bold enough in his decision making could have made the tough call that Kallis did, so close to the World Cup. Some would have thought to ride the rough waves in the hope of a fitting farewell for diligent service rendered. But Kallis knew better than to bide time and hold South Africa back. Arguably the toughest decision that even the greatest of players must make before it is forced down their throat like bitter medicine, Kallis was magnanimous enough to realize that it was time to make room for fresher legs and more importantly, a fresher, hungrier mind.  On calling it a day, Kallis expressed rather candidly, “I realized in Sri Lanka that my dream of playing in a World Cup was a bridge too far. Ï just knew on that tour that I was done. The squad that was in Sri Lanka is an amazing one and I believe they have a good chance of bringing the trophy home in March.”Kallis’ thoughts are not entirely misplaced. He was at first hand to experience that South Africa does have the potential talent to go the distance – that really never was South Africa’s problem to be honest. While Kallis remained the only South African batsman to score a century in Sri Lanka in sixteen matches since 2004, on this tour alone, four centuries were scored between wicketkeeper-cum-opener, Quinton de Kock, South Africa’s ODI captain, AB de Villiers, and South Africa’s Test captain, Hashim Amla, who scored two centuries in a format that many had rather erroneously ascribed as being beyond the classically styled batsman. Besides, South Africa have a world class bowler in Dale Steyn and well backed up by the likes of Morne Morkel, Ryan McLaren and Vernon Philander although it has to be said in the same breath that South Africa have not quite unearthed an all rounder of the same caliber or mould as Kallis which is not unexpected given Kallis’ majestic yet rare stature in world cricket.

If numbers alone could separate the genius from the mediocre, Kallis would not find rush hour traffic-like competition. That he remains one of the most underrated cricketers of his time was evident in the fact that while Kallis was caught in a three horse race that involved India’s Sachin Tendulkar and Australia’s Ricky Ponting for the top billing as Test cricket’s highest run getter, he was often the forgotten third act. That Kallis finished third, falling short by only eighty-nine runs to Ponting’s 13,378 runs, boasting an average superior to both his contemporaries at 55.37 and having four centuries more than Ponting’s forty-one hundreds puts Kallis on a pedestal only a few can even aspire for.

When Kallis ended his Test career following the home series against India, it greatly impacted a fellow statesman and his captain, Graeme Smith. It was not long thereafter that the South African skipper called time on his own Test career at the end of the home Test series against Australia. And in one of those candid moments, Smith spoke about how Kallis’ retirement has had a telling impact on him towards factoring his own retirement decision. If fast bowlers hunt in pairs, perhaps there is something to be said of the fact that for Smith, Kallis may have seemed to have hung around since time immemorial, having begun his international career as a twenty-year old in 1995 while Smith’s own career got underway following the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2003 at twenty-three years of age.

That Kallis’ retirement from the one day internationals is a huge loss despite his lack of runs was evident in the effusive tribute that the current South African Test captain, Hashim Amla, paid to the genuine all rounder. Amla spoke about Kallis’ presence that had greatly influenced men of his generation and that he would leave a void in the dressing room, “Jacques was a one in 50 years cricketer who had a huge influence on so many Proteas players over a twenty year period. I was privileged to have been one of those. You appreciate the magnitude of the cricketer not only when you look at his record but also when you play alongside him.”
Numbers only further emphasize Amla’s point. Kallis retires from the game after having played 328 matches with 11,579 one day international runs that include seventeen centuries  and a phenomenal average of 44.36, only a shade shy of Tendulkar’s one day internationals average of 44.83. Kallis ends his career as the seventh highest run getter in the fifty overs format and only the third non-Asian cricketer in the top ten, sandwiched between Ponting in second spot and West Indies’ Brian Lara on the tenth rung.

But what differentiates Kallis from the likes of Tendulkar and Ponting is that while both men turned their arm over, one more than the other, Kallis was considered amongst the truly genuine all rounders the game has ever seen. Robust numbers back that perception including the fact that he is third on the list for winning the most number of Man of the Match awards at thirty-two. With 200 catches in Test matches and 131 catches in one day internationals, Kallis established himself as a permanent member of the safest slip cordon. His forty-five Test centuries make his the highest for South Africa, Smith coming in a distant second with twenty-seven with Amla catching up with twenty-two centuries to his name. His 292 Test wickets and 283 one day internationals wickets only further evidence the fact that Kallis was one of South Africa’s frontline blustery bowlers on whom the South African skipper relied consistently on to form the crux of the team’s bowling arsenal. He is one of four all rounders and the only non-Asian besides Sanath Jayasuriya, Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Afridi to have to his credit over 5000 runs and 200 wickets which says something not only about the dearth of great all rounders but also, of the rare gem of an asset that Kallis has been to South Africa’s cause.

But Kallis did more than just make up the numbers. One of the truly enigmatic personalities of the sport, Kallis carried a Zen-like aura about him that defied the colossus of a team mate that he was in the dressing room, an opponent who commanded respect and a true icon of the game in every sense of the word. His character as a grounded, safe, stable, gentle giant of the game was in sharp contrast to the competitive streak with which he approached his game. Although never one with a visible aggressive streak, an ability he learnt well to camouflage under an unfazed exterior rather early in his career more as a necessity in a team context when South Africa needed an anchor rather than a swashbuckling hero, Kallis was a stealth weapon who sneaked up on the opposition with a game changing, match-winning performance to evince awe and respect.
One of the truly reticent gentlemen on and off the game, Jacques Kallis came to represent a certain sense of solidity about a team that carried a touch of vulnerability and fragility about them despite having one of the most mentally formidable captains in Kepler Wessels leading them upon their return to international cricket over three decades ago. Kallis reminded many of Brian McMillan in the same likeness of both, being a broad shouldered gentleman with a safe pair of hands in the slip and an all rounder. And yet like much of South Africa from the initial days, Kallis was a vastly improved, improvised and impervious version of the all rounder who represented South Africa in the limited opportunities that was accorded to South African cricketers late in their careers at the time.

Kallis often gave off the impression that he couldn’t care less what the bowler had in mind, often seeming to appear millions of miles away while at the crease. His meditative nonchalant stance was perhaps amongst the most deceptive as Kallis soon developed a reputation for being one of the most difficult men to dislodge while at the crease. His batting may not have been as flamboyant or extravagant as some of his counterparts or even some of the other hailed all rounders of yore, but that by no means meant that Kallis’ style of batting was unattractive. If anything, Kallis’ classic cover drives spelt magnificence, his picture perfect follow through arrested in flawless perfection and yet his return to his nonchalant poise at the crease seemed not to allude to the majestic shot that preceded it.
It was hard to fault Kallis for much while he was at the crease, except perhaps for sometimes giving off the impression that he was more content occupying the crease than letting the scoreboard rattle. Yet numbers reveal nothing could be further from the truth. Kallis was one of those few players in international cricket who perfected the sublime art of pacing an innings, keeping his poise, playing into his role with deceptive sedateness before powering through to another applause winning knock that put South Africa on top and in command.  Never one to show emotion, even when life handed him some toughs family wise, the only time Kallis’ emotions became more evident in the public eye when fellow South African cricketer and personal friend, Mark Boucher, suffered loss of vision in one eye while keeping eye on the foreign tour of England in 2012 when Kallis tussled between his on field duties and off field hospital visits. He even dedicated his century in the Test at the Oval to his friend of many years.

With the ball, Kallis was equally deceptive and blustery in pace. Injuries may have got the better of his bowling career towards the end of his career but not of his prowess. His ability can be verified in numbers, providing South Africa another frontline bowler who gave the skipper the option to add depth to the line up. And yet in a team that prided itself on more than one all rounder, there was never any doubt that Kallis epitomized the perfect example of the traditional cricket all rounder, one of the few genuine ones that cricket would look upon with both, pride and envy.
Kallis’ retirement renders the air with nostalgia because he played the finest brand of cricket, classic and yet blended beautifully to meet the demands of the modern game. In Kallis, South Africa fashioned a great many ambitions. While others may have walked away with accolades on the day for a job well done, Kallis was the silent strength behind the team, the wind beneath the wings, the sturdy foundation below the magnificent architecture. The pillars may not always be bold or ostentatious; they need not be. They reflect the rarest brilliance because they hold up the structure without drawing attention to themselves. Kallis was content being the grit behind the glory, the gumption of the story than the glamour of the show. Never the gambler, always the giver, Kallis showed that the sublime could deliver just as effectively as the flamboyant, perhaps more deceptively so. Kallis has been worth his weight in gold.

@ crictoday.com