Opinion: Test Cricket’s player of the decade

For the last decade no wicket in all of cricket has been more highly prized than that of Jacques Kallis. Kallis has been the colossus of the South African team, a figure whose intimidating presence conjures calm in team mates and dread in opponents.

Kallis’ batting exploits often get forgotten amongst the media circus surrounding higher profile batsmen such as Ricky Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar, but for the past decade, he has stood broad shouldered above the rest and helped South Africa become the cricket powerhouse it stands as today.

Few contemporary players are a better fit for the idea of the traditional cricketer. Kallis is an elegant yet forceful batsman, who has at his disposal both a sure technique and a mind impermeable to distraction.

Perhaps the biggest compliment one can pay him is that Kallis has been so consistent throughout most of his career, that his runs have almost been taken for granted. In the first three years of his Test career Kallis struggled, but thereafter, his career has taken off stunningly, with his average in the last decade exceeding 62, and accumulating almost 11, 000 runs.

For Kallis’ critics who believe that this average has been inflated by matches against weaker opponents such as Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, even with those matches excluded, Kallis' average over the last decade is the best in the world (59.47), almost four runs clear of the second-placed Ponting.

Not only has Kallis amassed nearly 11, 000 runs this past decade, he has snared 270 test wickets at an average of 32, a highly respectable figure for a full time opening bowler. Though his role as a bowler has diminished with each passing season, he will be remembered as a purveyor of surprising pace and swing.

A fine leader on the field and a mentor to his younger South African team mates, Kallis has brought his country to the top of the game, and helped build a new generation of stars.

Kallis has shouldered the role of the fulcrum around which the wheel must try to turn, and South African cricket has never been running smoother. A key component with both bat and ball, he is arguably the greatest and most influential test cricketer of this past decade, and the all-round legacy of Jacques Kallis should be talked about next to greats such as Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Ian Botham and Kapil Dev.