Former South African cricketer Jacques Kallis was inducted into the International Cricket Council Cricket Hall of Fame alongside Australian World Cup-winning all-rounder Lisa Sthalekar and Zaheer Abbas of Pakistan.
Kallis became the fourth South African overall and second in the modern era to be inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. The other South African inductees are: Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards and Allan Donald.
Kallis said it was a “great honour” to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as it was something that he “never expected” when he started playing.
“I certainly did not play the game for any accolades or anything like that, I only wanted to win the games for whoever I was playing for,” Kallis said.
“But it is nice to be recognised when one has succeeded in the sport, it is nice to be recognised by people for something that you have achieved in the game, something that I am really proud of.”
Acting Cricket South Africa CEO Kugandrie Govender said it was “highly fitting” that South Africa’s “greatest player of the modern era” should be honoured this way.
“He earned his place in every Protea team he represented both as a top-order batsman and as an outstanding swing bowler of lively pace. In addition, his slip catching was legendary and contributed significantly to the successes our fast bowlers enjoyed throughout his career,” Govender said.
“Most of important of all is the outstanding example he has set for the highest standards of sportsmanship and the traditions of the game to inspire not just aspiring young cricketers but the youth of the entire country.”
Kallis, an all-rounder, played for the Proteas between December 1995 and July 2014 during which he broke a number of South African and global records.
He is South Africa’s most capped player in both Test and ODI cricket in addition to being its leading Test run-scorer. He represented South Africa in 519 matches across all formats (166 Tests, 328 ODIs and 25 T20Is), in which he scored 25,534 international runs and claimed 577 wickets.
The 44-year-old won 23 ‘Player of the Match’ awards in Test cricket and spent 592 days as the number one ranked Test batsman between 2005 and 2011.
Kallis is the only South African batsman to score over 10,000 runs in both Tests and One Day Internationals (ODIs).
He was named ICC Player of the Year and ICC Test Player of the year in 2005.
