Wednesday, 14th November 2007 at 10:17 pm

Can anyone stop Jacques Kallis?

So that’s 9 000 Test runs out the way, then, with close to 30 hundreds and an average nudging 60 thrown in for good measure. No double hundred, perhaps, but that’s almost being pedantic: all told, the Jacques Kallis Test record is nothing short of spectacular. And after the wobble earlier this year, when he was left out of Twenty20 World Cup and resigned the vice-captaincy in protest, Kallis’s appetite for cricket has never looked more apparent.

The mauling of New Zealand (and it really was a brutal submission) may have seen Dale Steyn get man of the match, ten wickets confirming that South Africa’s genuinely quick fast bowler has an awful lot to offer the South African attack. But it was Kallis’s second-innings masterpiece that really caught the eye; and in particular, the acceleration after the hundred which hasn’t always been a Kallis trademark.

For so long, Kallis has had to drop anchor amidst a floundering top order; with Hashim Amla offering a similarly solid platform, Kallis has invested a little faith in both his fellow batsmen, and his own attacking fluency. We saw the results in the latter half of that second innings - and Feverpitcher suspects more of the same awaits in coming Tests, starting with game two at Centurion. Kallis not getting a hundred is a surprise these days; Daniel Vettori will be a very nervous man when Jacques Kallis saunters out to the crease at Centurion. And with very good reason.