Jacques Kallis

1975 : October 16th

Jacques Kallis, who was born today, is possibly the greatest allrounder in cricket history :

(with all respect to Garry Sobers).

JH Kallis lbw b Junaid Khan DUCK

Unhappy birthday for Kallis. :-[   

Kallis  got the recognition he deserved when he was named Player of the Year

and Test Player of the Year at the ICC Awards in October 2005.

In the 2007 World Cup, he was South Africa's highest run-scorer, with 485 

The 2010-11 season was even better for Kallis - in nine Test innings, he scored 821 runs ;

with one half-century and five hundreds, including his maiden double , at 57.4. 

He looks the only batsman in the world with anything close to a shot

at challenging Sachin Tendulkar's record for most Test runs....

The disappointment

Jacques Kallis turned 38 today and, with Tillakaratne Dilshan having announced his retirement

and Sachin Tendulkar's exit imminent, Kallis is now one of the grand old men of Test cricket.

Before the Test, he shared his thoughts on playing for so long:

"It's good to know I've been able to hang around for long enough to make it to my 38th birthday."  

But he didn't have much to celebrate on the day.

The fifth ball he faced, from Junaid Khan, came back into him as he played across the line and struck him in front of middle stump.

As the umpire raised his finger, Kallis tucked his bat under his arm and walked off :

not waiting for anything resembling thoughts of a review.

It was the 15th duck of Kallis' career and the first on his birthday.... :-[

Much as I'd love a South African to take the record, I think he'll end up number 2 on the list of top run scorers. As long as he has a halfway decent season, he should have no problem getting past Dravid and Ponting, but he's still about 2700 runs away from Tendulkar's record and I can't see him playing long enough to get that many.

I'm not sure anyone will ever beat Tendulkar's record. With the added strain of T20, there's too much cricket being played to expect any player to stay fit long enough to score that many runs.

There's absolutely no way Kallis can touch Sachin's record, or come close to it. Why would anyone think that? He's already aged, and has injuries from time to time.

Given all what Gina said, the best guy who has actually a decent shot at Sachin's record is IMO Cook. Has age on his side, fitnesswise he's better than many others, and has already 7K runs to his tally. So if he can keep up being consistent and scoring them big runs, then he COULD potentially reach there. I'm talking of this as a mere possibility though.

Couldn't agree more. If Cook continues the way he has played till now, there is a good chance he will touch Sachin's record.

Age is on his side as well. And with the responsibility of captaincy, he has just become better.