Louder than Figures

Over the years many people have said many things about Jacques Kallis. People have said that he is selfish, that he plays for his average, that he lacks the capacity or the inclination to raise the tempo of his innings when the situation demands it.

It has also regularly been said, especially over recent years, that he doesn't like bowling. Such comments, whether they are accurate or not, create an impression. An impression which Kallis, with his low media profile, has done little to dispel. Kallis has always been a man who has done his talking with his pads on or with the ball in his hand.

If, in your 38th year, with 159 Tests behind you, you can produce the type of delivery which dismissed Azhar Ali at the Wanderers yesterday, and then, later in the day, get off the mark with an off-drive of priceless quality, you have no need to bother about what anyone says.

Of course the statistics say it, but actions always speak louder than mere figures. This is a great, great cricketer.

Real Test Match Batting

In a week when England bit the Perth dust again, the one and only Sachin reached a milestone which once would never have seemed possible and another all-time great, Jacques Kallis, reached his first double-century in Test cricket, it could have been difficult to decide what to write about.

But to me the biggest story in the cricket world these past few weeks has been the form of Mike Hussey. A man who had been virtually written off as an international batsman but who has kept his team in the series with as measured a display of batting technique as you could ever hope to see.

Technical rigour, patience and stamina are unfashionable virtues these days. Relentless innovation and the hitting of boundaries can often seem to be all that matters as the more impulsive charms of the shortened forms of the game engage the senses of its newer acolytes more rapidly than Test cricket can. But this, from Hussey, has been real Test match batting: the advance selection of an appropriate gameplan, the persistence to see it through to its conclusion, and the shotmaking skill to bend England's often naive bowlers to his will.

At 35 Hussey is no tyro. But, while he is only a few months younger than Ponting, he belongs to a different generation of Australian cricketer. The generation who could never break into the Test side during the glory years and who instead were forced to earn their living abroad. While Hussey's basic skills were forged on the quick tracks of Western Australia they were polished on the English county circuit; at Wantage Road in Northampton, in the shadow of the Jessop Stand at Bristol, and at the Riverside. Holding poor sides together and piling up huge scores.

Hussey's batting over the past few weeks has been that of a man reluctant to give up something which he had to wait a long time to achieve. England have yet to discover an effective way of attacking him, but, with the series in the balance and Melbourne almost upon us, they need to do so soon.

Because, given the chance, he will bat, and bat, and bat.

They Call it Madness

There can be little doubt that South Africa, and the South African cricket community, expected to beat England. In fact, I think a lot of people probably didn't expect England to be at the races.

The fact that the series was drawn - whether England deserved it or not - has led to one of South African cricket's periodic bouts of blood-letting, even if the reasons for it are much more long-standing and complex.

Rumours abound. One of them suggests that Arthur resigned because the wind seemed to be blowing in the direction of Jacques Kallis's omission from the forthcoming Indian tour. And today I read that Graeme Smith isn't the most popular player in the country. In the words of one Kevin McCallum:

Smith is resented because he seems so sure of himself, because he scores his runs in such an ugly manner, and at such a rapid rate. This fear of confidence in South Africa is utterly bizarre. The perception of Smith is based more on emotion than the make-up of the man.

Just in case anyone hadn't noticed, Jacques Kallis and Graeme Smith can both bat a bit.

Are these people mad?

Hard As Nails

England's evisceration at the hands of Steyn and Morkel was quick, it was bloodless and it had been coming. With Steyn closer to his outstanding best than ever before against England and Morkel looking once again like a bowler who could terrorise the world, something had to give, and with England's two best batsmen continuing to struggle and the lower order failing to compensate (just what was Prior thinking?) it was always likely to be the precarious lead which they brought north from Cape Town.

On England's side it was a series for low-key heroes; less so South Africa, with the immense Kallis and Smith doing what they do best, although yesterday it was refreshing and appropriate for the frequently overlooked Mark Boucher to take his share of the limelight.

Despite their strange flirtation with Thami Tsolekile and AB de Villiers (not sure what happened to him) under Ray Jennings it's now very hard to imagine or remember a South African side without Boucher behind the stumps. Low-slung, perennially scowling, shuffling up and down the cut strip for hours on end and catching chance after chance off the seamers. His trademark celebration - a leap in the air and the ball thrown skywards - is an island of relative flamboyance in a sea of businesslike reserve.

Boucher now stands as one of the greatest post-isolation South African cricketers; a wicket-keeper of class and consistency, a batsman of timing and fortitude who's at his very best under pressure, a hard-as-nails senior pro who's seen it all and more, and who, with Ntini gone, represents, along with Kallis, the final link with the Cronje era.

He's never exactly been a cricketer to warm to, but this time of all times he didn't deserve to end up on the losing side.

Ramifications of Failure

With the dust having settled a bit I wonder if it's now possible to make any sense out of what happened at Kingsmead a few days ago.

Because of the ease with which England had built their lead I wasn't expecting South Africa to have too much trouble batting out time. The potential movement, for both Swann and the seamers, looked slow, the South African batting line-up looked experienced and capable, if just a little short with Morne Morkel at eight. Sitting on a sofa a few thousand miles away all looked fine and dandy.

It soon became clear, though, that things were far from fine. We had Amla offering an exemplary display of how not to drive at a big turning off-spinner, followed by Kallis, de Villiers and Duminy all temporarily forgetting that in seaming conditions it can often be just as dangerous to try too hard not to use your bat as it is to use it.

Kallis's decision not to play a stroke at a ball from Broad which, even if it hadn't moved, would have come very close to his off-stump, looked like an especially bizarre misjudgement. But why?

Well, the trite explanation (but also the correct one) is to say that the pressure got to them. When their team's unxepectedly up against it and their minds start to be infected by the negative ramifications of failure, players, even great ones, do very strange things.

But it seems to me that the current South African side are perhaps more susceptible to this type of collapse than many other teams of the past with whom they'd like to rank themselves. I do not feel that they yet have the depth of confidence that goes with a record of sustained achievement, nor the type of settled attack which instils confidence in their batsmen. It's surely unquestioned now that the sentimental, possibly politically-influenced, decision to play Ntini at Durban was wrong, and it heaped further pressure on a team that was more vulnerable to the type of bristling counter-attack which England came up with than they'd have liked us to have believed.

This is a good team, if you let it play. If you get in its face and do what it doesn't fancy, like trying to get people out with orthodox off-spin from the first ball you bowl, you've got a chance.

And Kallis - immensely experienced, technically-sound, but inclined to be a little too predictable, one-paced and cocksure - exemplifies their vulnerability to opponents who do what they least expect.

Whether, given their terrible post-isolation record there, England can do the same in Cape Town in the face of what's bound to be an intense South African backlash, remains to be seen.

As someone who spent the early days of 1996 in the shadow of Table Mountain and who still comes out in a muck sweat at the mere mention of the names of Dave Richardson and Paul Adams, I know what can happen out there on the Newlands acres.

We await Sunday morning with interest.

Get Out of Jail Free

I try never to knowingly agree with anything Charlie Colvile says, so inevitably I have my doubts about the way he was dancing on South Africa's grave with such undisguised relish last night.

For what it's worth I don't think that they choked, merely that their standards had slipped slightly from where they'd been for most of the competition. I'm sure this had something to do with a heightened awareness of pressure on the part of the players and the winner-take-all nature of the contest, but it also reflected the effervescent quality of Pakistan's cricket.

On the day when his erstwhile associate Allen Stanford finally gave himself up to the authorities, Giles Clarke found himself presenting the match award to Shahid Afridi, but, while Afridi and Umar Gul were outstanding, the true highlight for me was the ease and coolness with which Shoaib Malik caught Jacques Kallis to practically terminate South Africa's chances.

In a format which tends to reward erratic brilliance at the expense of relentless competence, Pakistan always had a good chance of winning last night and they'll take that forward to Sunday, regardless of who they're playing.

Stanford, languishing in a cell somewhere in Virginia, probably won't be watching the West Indies take on Sri Lanka later, but I will.

Complete Domination

The weather was decent, the three-sided ground was packed and the batting side massacred the bowling from start to finish. But yesterday's events at Taunton were only marginally fulfilling. A match between a weakened Somerset side and what was very nearly a full strength South African eleven was never likely to be very satisfying, and so it proved. The Proteas scored at will throughout the day and only seemed to be at risk from indecision over whether to hit the ball for four or six or the onset of terminal boredom.

This said, there was plenty to admire. Of course, we had Kallis's unrivalled technical mastery, embellished with some uninhibited flamboyance after reaching his hundred, but I also welcomed the opportunity to watch Hashim Amla bat for the very first time.

Like Kallis he barely looked challenged at any stage, and his combination of functional watchfulness, silky timing and, ultimately, complete domination of the bowling, reminded me strongly of Mohammad Yousuf. The beard is pure coincidence.

In the end only a sharp blow on the elbow from a delivery from Andy Caddick could halt Kallis's progress at 160, while Amla was run out for 172.

As I write, they've declared past 500 and Somerset are 58 for 4. There's only one way the game is going and it doesn't favour the home side.

A strong team is warming up well. England watch out.

Further Exposure

ODIs, World Cups and international Twenty20 competitions may come and go with his participation questioned or absent, but, as soon as the ball's red, the kit's white and the game lasts a maximum of five days, Jacques Kallis clicks into gear. His twin centuries in South Africa's first Test win in Karachi took him to 26 in Test cricket, and, whatever the desultory nature of his strike-rate (around 43, Cricinfo tells me), his average and the sheer technical impregnability of his batting mark him down as one of the finest batsmen in the world today. I can understand the questions (and the fact that his highest Test score remains below 200 tells part of the story), but, for sheer weight of runs, where would South Africa be without him?

I've waxed lyrical about Kallis before, but I've had fewer opportunities to write about successful England one-day sides. Yesterday's victory in the second ODI at Dambulla was hugely impressive, even if it may have been predicated on some Sri Lankan complacency. But then, if you'd played England goodness knows how many times in limited-over cricket in the last twenty years or so and steamrollered them repeatedly, you'd probably be complacent too.

Ryan Sidebottom fired in his customary new-ball spell from left-arm over and Graeme Swann showed the type of technical ability, competitiveness and temperamental solidity which completely justified his selection (and raised questions about his extended absence under Fletcher) and should see him back on the island for the Tests before Christmas, while Owais Shah continued to cement his grip on the tricky number six position. When Shah was growing up in the Middlesex side his chief problem appeared, as with many young players, to be knowing which of his many shots to play and when to play them. Almost 29, he seems to have all that taped now, and, while his right-hand dominant technique will never be a thing of beauty, his deep well of innate talent should ensure that he stays around the side for a while. Tests are a different matter, but he sure ain't doing his chances of further exposure any harm.

Staying the Same, Changing

With the 2007 English season finally out of the way and the first World Twenty20 also put to bed, the mind turns to everything else that's going on in the perpetually revolving, often crazily over-burdened, cricket world.

Australia in India, South Africa in Pakistan, England in Sri Lanka. There is, as always, a lot happening, but the more things change the more they remain the same. As I write Jacques Kallis is unbeaten on 118 at the end of the first day in Karachi and Mahela Jayawardena has top-scored for Sri Lanka against England in Dambulla.

Elsewhere, though, things have moved on. It was announced at the end of last week that Allan Donald would not be taking up a full-time appointment as England's bowling coach and would instead be joining his old team-mate Ashley Giles back in the brave new world of Edgbaston. This is a pity, as Donald clearly had a beneficial effect on the performances of England's wayward seamers last summer and it remains to be seen whether or not Ottis Gibson, for all his magnificence in Durham colours, can do the same.

In India, meanwhile, the national 'A' team and their South African counterparts finally managed to get on the pitch for their first (or third) ODI in Rajkot. India gained a narrow victory, largely thanks to Subramaniam Badrinath, the Tamil Nadu player who's been hovering around the side for the last couple of years or so and who's built up a nice portfolio of decent performances. I noticed last week that he's been given a 'Grade D' contract by the BCCI; it'll be interesting to see if he can kick on, as India, whatever their recent achievements in the longest and shortest forms of the international game, will soon be needing some high-quality reinforcements.

The same might be said of England's batting once this afternoon is out...

Purity of Method

At the end of a Test series I always enjoy looking at the marks out of ten and the performance summaries given to individual players by Cricinfo. In my experience they're usually pretty hard to disagree with but they can be thought-provoking.

Earlier in the week Andrew McGlashan's assessment of the players on show in the South Africa-Pakistan series caught my eye. I didn't see much of the series and I hadn't taken in quite how important Jacques Kallis had been to South Africa. But then, I thought, Jacques Kallis is always important to South Africa. How could a player that good be anything else?

Which, in turn, sent my mind spinning on one of those rollercoaster journeys through the years, taking in the time I tried to shield myself from the vicious Cape Town sun as Kallis bowled for the first time in Test cricket, that ODI innings at the Oval just after he'd lost his father, bowling out England at Headingley in 2003, and piling on the runs during England's last tour of South Africa but being criticized for being too slow and one-dimensional.

The stats say it all.

8,400 Test runs at 55 with 24 centuries, 213 wickets and 105 catches. The figures of a truly great player, and, in South African terms, one fit to sit just behind Pollock and Richards as a batsman and Procter as an all-rounder.

In the wider world I don't think Kallis has yet received the praise his skills and achievements deserve; batsmen who place efficiency and purity of method above more ostentatious qualities rarely do, and he's taken the ball so irregularly in recent years that many have forgotten how well he can bowl when the muse is with him and conditions are right. But purely as a batsman I think he's just about the most perfect technician I've ever seen; perhaps even more accomplished than Gavaskar, Dravid or Martin Crowe.

To see some of his straight-drives on the last day at Newlands, his spiritual home since he was a teenager, was to witness a player at the peak of his powers, confident of his capabilities and at one with his environment.

Never flashy and not too stylish.

Just very, very good.

Another Day, Another Game, Another Retirement

I haven't posted anything original for a few days and already the ever-evolving cricket world has moved on. England have subsided to their worst defeat of even this dreadful tour, West Indies have knocked off a cool 270 to beat India in Chennai, South Africa have completed their second 2-1 series win in a matter of weeks, and New Zealand, without the retired Nathan Astle, have pushed Australia all the way, losing by just eight runs amid a welter of typically powerful strokes from the bat of Jacob Oram.

I've only managed to see isolated bits of all the games, but while I have no doubt that England are still trying their damnedest, it's obvious, not least to Michael Vaughan, that their collective confidence level has hit rock bottom, and, with New Zealand's surely going in the opposite direction after their gallant showing today in Perth, it's becoming increasingly hard to see England getting anything out of the CB Series, while the World Cup, which follows hard on its heels, is a long-lost cause. They had little or no prospect of winning the thing even before the events of the past few weeks. Now even Kenya and Canada must be rubbing their hands and fancying their chances.

South Africa will be happy with their latest series victory, Pakistan, of course, less so. In the end it was fitting and unsurprising that South Africa's two soundest batsmen, Jacques Kallis, to whom unwavering technical probity is second nature, and the rock-solid Ashwell Prince, perhaps the most improved international batsman in the world over the past year, should have seen them almost to victory. Pakistan were ultimately let down by a lack of effective support for the virile excellence of Mohammad Asif and the effervescent aggression of Danish Kaneria. With Shoaib and Umar Gul gone, only Mohammad Sami could offer anything in the way of experience, but the chances of the under-achiever's under-achiever translating his experience into wickets on the scorecard when they were most needed were always remote.

New Zealand have always relied on a stable coterie of senior players to see them right at the top level, and Astle had occupied a seat at their top table for more than a decade. His sudden retirement apparently came as a surprise, but, with his once infallible eye starting to fade a little, he perhaps saw the writing on the wall a little earlier than some of his compatriots. Although I always enjoyed watching him bat on TV, I can't remember seeing him make many runs in the flesh, so the most vivid image of his career in my mind will remain that of Andy Caddick and his England fielders craning their necks upwards to see the ball hurtling out of Lancaster Park, seemingly destined for orbit after one of the purest and most reverberatingly powerful lofted drives ever played.

There's more at Mike on Cricket.