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During his 19-year-long international profession, the previous RCB and KKR all-rounder played 519 matches and scored 25,534 runs along with taking over 577 wickets and completing 338 catches.
Ricky Ponting picks biggest cricketer of all time. (Picture Credit: AFP, Screengrab)
Legendary Australian cricketer and former captain Ricky Ponting has ignored Indian batting greats Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli to select a former South African cricketer, who also played for Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Kolkata Knight Riders within the cash-rich Indian Premier League, because the ‘best cricketer to ever play.’ Ponting was asked concerning the ‘biggest to ever play cricket’ on The Howie Games podcast, and in reply he mentioned Jacques Kallis’ name.
“Jacques Kallis is the perfect cricketer that’s ever played. I don’t care. I don’t care about all of the others. Full stop. 13,000 runs. 44 or 45 Test a whole bunch. And 300 wickets. Either one in all those careers is outstanding. You’ll be able to take 300 Test wickets daily of the week, and you’re taking 45 Tests 100s. He’s got them each. He was only a born cricketer. Unorthodox within the slips, didn’t drop anything within the slips, had a kind of funny technique, caught every part. I feel he’s the perfect and essentially the most underrated because he’s not talked about very much in any respect. Probably due to his personality and his character. He’s not on the market. He’s low-key, yeah. Hasn’t done much media work. So, he’s kind of one in all those forgotten-about ones a bit bit,” Ponting said.
Kallis played 166 Tests, 328 ODIs, and 25 T20Is for the Proteas during his 19-year-long international profession, which kicked off in 1995 and resulted in 2014, and scored 13289, 11579, and 666 runs along with taking over 292, 273, and 12 wickets in Tests, ODIs, and T20Is, respectively. Kallis is the third-leading run scorer in Test cricket and sits on the No. 8 position within the list of highest run getters within the 50-over format of the sport.
As an outfielder, Kallis accomplished 338 catches in 519 international matches (4th most for any player) and is one in all the 4 players to take 200 catches within the five-day format of the sport.
Within the IPL, Kallis was a part of RCB from 2008 to 2010 and played for KKR from 2011 to 2014, where he won two titles under Gautam Gambhir’s leadership. He finished his IPL profession with 2427 runs and 65 wickets in 98 matches.
