West Indies fast bowler Kemar Roach has come up against some of the best batsmen in the world in the longest format, but he feels former South Africa cricketer Jacques Kallis was the ‘hardest batsman’ he came face-to-face with.
Kallis is widely regarded as one of the finest all-rounders to grace the sport and his statistics, both with bat and ball, is nothing short of surreal. Roach hailed Kallis’ technique and also spoke about the ease with which he used to go about his job while at the crease.
“Hands down, I would have to say, Jacques Kallis. He was definitely one of the tougher for sure. He was very technical very solid in his approach. He played it very easily, especially in the home series in 2010. He is probably the hardest batsman I have ever bowled to,” Roach said during an Instagram live session with Cricket West Indies.
Kallis also finds his name in the exclusive club of players to have hit in excess of 10,000 runs in both ODIs and Tests. With the ball too, he picked up 273 and 292 wickets respectively in the two formats.
Due to his consistency, Kallis commands so much respect from others players that rarely a team gets assembled and Kallis’ name isn’t on it. Recently, India skipper Virat Kohli and former South Africa captain AB de Villiers named a combined Ind-SA ODI XI during a conversation on Instagram and Kallis was the designated all-rounder in their list as well.
South Africa speedster Dale Steyn also picked Kallis in his ‘best XI’ and so did Sri Lanka cricketer Dinesh Chandimal when he listed out his all-time Test XI on his Twitter handle.