Kallis hits a wobble with bat

JACQUES Kallis is the finest cricketer SA has yet produced, and he has had the time and the opportunities to prove it.

But, with the hard work of batting, bowling and shutting the opposition out of his mind in 166 Tests and 327 one-day internationals sunk deep into his body and psyche, he is in the twilight of his career.

Pertinently, he has not used his most recent chances to summon what South Africa need most from him – his greatness.

Less than a week ago, the prospect of Kallis making it to the 2015 World Cup was reasonable. He had not played in anything except the Indian Premier League since his retirement from Test cricket after the Boxing Day match against India in December. But he was still Kallis.

However, the nine balls he has faced in South Africa one-day series in Sri Lanka have shown us a Kallis who is not the player we remember.

The second of them was delivered in Colombo on Sunday by that merchant of mystery, Ajantha Mendis, who cast his spell with a wicked twist of the fingers that unzipped one of the tightest techniques in the game.

Kallis’s static front pad was stranded a foot away from where his bat hung equally motionless, leaving his back pad as exposed as a stripper in a nunnery.

The carom spat through the gap and nailed him leg-before. Only once Kallis had turned on his heel did it appear as if his body was doing what his mind told it to.

In Pallekele on Wednesday, Kallis lurched into a ragged hook to a bouncer from Lasith Malinga.

Too quickly, the ball was through him, taking the top edge of his bat and flying to Kumar Sangakkara even as Kallis completed his follow through. It was the shot of a man who would have played it more precisely, less hurriedly 10 years earlier.

In the space of those nine deliveries, Kallis has scored one run and got himself out ugly twice. On top of that, he has yet to bowl a ball in anger in Sri Lanka because of a back problem.

Suddenly, Kallis is what he has not seemed for almost the two decades of playing at the highest level: human.

Did he still have what it takes?

“People ask questions about your ability a lot quicker when you’re 38 than when you’re 28,” Barry Richards said yesterday.

A month ago, Richards said it would be “hard not to pick” Kallis for the World Cup. Did he still think so?

“The next couple of games will really tell us where Jacques is, but the only person who can answer that question is the guy who shows up in the morning,” Richards said.

“This is not about fitness; it’s a mental thing – whether he is still geared for it. But great players fight back and I think he still wants to do it.”

Kallis’s almost casual announcement of his Test retirement suggests his head rather than his heart will have the final say.

How did Richards decide he had had enough of first-class cricket?

“I knew I didn’t want to do it anymore,” he said. “I was 38, and there was nothing left to prove – I had been proving it for 18 years.”

Kallis is 38 and in his 19th year as an international player. But he does have something powerful left to prove: that he was part of a team that won the World Cup.