Jacques Kallis among 3 cricketers inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame
The International Cricket Council (ICC) announced today that the great Jacques Kallis has been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
The South African is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders the game of cricket has ever seen, and is the only cricketer in history to have scored more than 10,000 runs and taken more than 250 wickets in both the Test and the ODI formats.
Jacques Kallis is the fourth South African cricketer to be inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame, after Graeme Pollock (2009), Barry Richards (2009) and Allan Donald (2019). He joins the likes of Kapil Dev, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Ian Botham, Sir Richard Hadlee and Imran Khan in the all-rounders department.
Kallis was inducted along with Australian women's cricket legend Lisa Sthalekar and Pakistan batting great Zaheer Abbas.
Criteria to be inducted in the ICC Hall of Fame
The ICC has imposed some strict rules for entry into the Hall of Fame.
Batsmen must have scored at least 8,000 runs and 20 hundreds, along with an average of over 50, in one of the two main formats - Tests or ODIs. Bowlers must have picked up at least 200 wickets in one of these two formats, with their strike rate below 50 in Tests and below 30 in ODIs.
Jacques Kallis' international career
After making his Test debut in 1995 against England, Jacques Kallis went on to represent South Africa in 166 Tests, and scored 13,289 runs at an average of 55.37. He tallied 45 hundreds and 58 fifties, along with 292 wickets in these games.
In the 50-over format, Jacques Kallis played 328 ODIs, and scored 11,579 runs with 17 hundreds and 86 fifties to his name. The 44-year-old also scalped 273 wickets, and has the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy in his cabinet.