Jacques Kallis is known on the ground as the saviour of South Africa in dangerous times. He has played brilliantly in crucial times both with bat and ball. His statistics speaks of as one among the best all-rounders.  But cricket puritans still have reservations against Kallis. The South African all-rounder is yet to find berth among the league of extraordinary gentlemen including India’s Kapil Dev, West Indies’ Sir Gary Sobers, Pakistan’s Imran Khan or England’s Ian Botham.

Kallis has scored 9801 runs in 125 Tests at an average of 55.06 and taken 245 wickets at a highly respectable 30.92, which is not at bad in any sense. He has hit tons 30 times in his career, but never made a double hundred. The figures are well ahead of Sobers, who made 8032 runs at 57.78 in 93 Tests and took 235 wickets at 34.03. Sobers is considered as the greatest all rounder. “Keith Stackpole, who scored seven tons in 43 Tests as an opener feels that Kallis is a “selfish cricketer”. He doesn’t rate Kallis against players such as Gary Sobers, Imran Khan, Keith Miller, Adam Gilchrist, Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev and Ian Botham. While speaking to a tabloid, Stackpole said that while watching him bating, you may feel that he is playing just to make up his average.  He always has played for himself, not for the team.

Former Test player Rodney Hogg, who played against Sobers, Imran, Hadlee, Botham, Kapil, Malcolm Marshall and Clive Rice, is of the opinion that Kallis lacks against Australians. According to him, Kallis is a flat-track bully, who dishes it out to the minnows like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe but fails against the Australians. Sobers has hit maximum of his tons against England and Australia, whereas Kallis has picked up around 1000 runs and 40 wickets against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Kallis at the age of 33 is boring to watch as a bowler, just constantly bowling outside off-stump; feels Rodney Hogg.

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