Johannesburg, Sep 21: South Africa all rounder Jacques Kallis can go on toplay for a quarter of century just like the legendary Clive Rice, who played at the first-class level for around 25 years, according to senior cricket journalist Rob Houwing.
Kallis, 36, performed brilliantly once again for the Proteas during their emphatic ten wickets win over neighbors Zimbabwe in their opening Twenty20 World Cup match, and Houwing believes he can go on to play at the same level for many more years to come.
“Perhaps it is time to start cheekily speculating whether Jacques Kallis is going to be another all-rounder like compatriot Clive Rice ... playing at first-class level for quarter of a century,” Houwing wrote in his article for Sports24.
“Kallis’s competitive juices, things that also came naturally and unrelentingly to former national captain and Transvaal “Mean Machine” icon Rice, simply show no signs of dimming,” he added.
“Rice played the vast majority of his cricket during South Africa’s isolation, but did eventually lead the country, while well past his 40th birthday, in that momentous trio of “welcome back” ODIs in India in November 1991,” he said.
Houwing added: “His first-class career having begun in 1969, it meant 25 illustrious years in the game at that level.”
“Kallis has not yet placed any date on his departure from the game, although it is much less likely that he will continue in franchise cricket, as Rice did for a while, once his phenomenal international career closes,” he wrote.
“He has simply hinted that he fancies a crack at another 50-overs World Cup - in 2015 (Australia/New Zealand), when he will have turned 40 and thus been playing the first-class game for some 22 years himself,” he concluded.
© ANI
