The Great Gamble
There was a time, not too long ago, when the mere mention of money was anathema in sports ~ professionals were allowed in Wimbledon for the first time in 1968, and in the Olympics only from 1988.
Legendary all-rounder Jacques Kallis was on Wednesday appointed as South Africa’s batting consultant for the entire duration of their home summer.
“Former Standard Bank Proteas all-rounder, @jacqueskallis75 has been named as the team’s batting consultant for the duration of the summer. He will join the squad for their camp starting in Pretoria today (Wednesday),” Cricket South Africa made the announcement in its official twitter handle.
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Kallis played a combined 519 international matches for South Africa with 25,534 runs and 577 wickets across formats. He featured in 166 Tests, 328 ODIs and 25 T20 Internationals.
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Kallis, 44, retired from all forms of international cricket in 2014 after amassing 62 international centuries– 45 Test and 17 ODI averaging 55.37 and 44.36 in each format respectively.
Kallis is the latest high-profile name to be inducted in South Africa’s coaching set-up after Mark Boucher’s appointment as head coach in CSA’s rebuilding programme for the national team.
Former Test wicketkeeper Boucher was named as South Africa’s new head coach on a four-year deal last week. The 43-year-old replaced Enoch Nkwe, who was interim team director after head coach Ottis Gibson was released in August and is now the assistant coach.
Kallis is not new to coaching. He was the head coach of Kolkata Knight Riders in 2015 when head coach Trevor Bayliss resigned to take over with the England cricket team.
Kallis was also the batting consultant of KKR for 2015 Indian Premier League season.
During the home summer, South Africa will first host England from mid-December until mid-February for four Test matches, three ODIs and three T20s.
After England, the Proteas will host Australia for three T20s and as many ODIs.
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