Proteas legend Jacques Kallis on Sunday became the fourth South African to be inducted into the International Cricket Council (ICC’s) Hall of Fame.
South Africa’s most-capped player of all time with a combined total of 519 caps, follows in the footsteps of fellow greats Allan Donald, Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock as the country’s inductees.
The 44-year-old played his first match for the national team (a Test match against England in Durban) in December 1995 and went on to star in 166 Tests, 328 ODIs and 25 T20Is before hanging up his boots in 2014.
Kallis bowed out at the top of the Proteas’ Test run-scorer’s list with 13 206 runs - the only man in our history to cross 10 000 five-day runs.
He averaged 55.25 in Tests - the most by any SA batsman, scoring 45 hundreds and 58 fifties.
Kallis is also the only South African batsman to get to the 10 000-mark in ODIs, totalling 11 550 at an average of over 45.
Furthermore, he is fifth on SA’s all-time wicket-taker’s list with 572 in all formats, also taking the most catches (334) of any outside fielder in the colours of the national team.
Born in the Mother City, Kallis conquered the world and of his achievement, he says: “It’s a great honour to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame.
“It is something that I never expected when I started. 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.
“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.”
Kallis was inducted alongside Pakistan great Zaheer Abbas and Australia Women’s allrounder Lisa Sthalekar.