Too much cricket affects the development of all-rounders, believes South African legend Jacques Kallis

Former South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis is currently in India playing in the Legends League Cricket.

New Delhi: Jacques Kallis, one of the last multi-skilled legends, says quality all-rounders have become a scarcity in contemporary cricket, especially in Test cricket, due to ‘too much cricket in different formats’. While Sir Garfield Sobers (8032 runs and 235 wickets) has been regarded throughout the generations as ‘the greatest of them all’, Kallis (over 25,000 runs and nearly 600 wickets across three formats) is undeniably one of the legendary all-rounders to grace the modern era. has known. seen.

The 1980s saw the emergence of four great all-rounders: Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Ian Botham and Kapil Dev, while the new millennium saw the emergence of Kallis and Andrew Flintoff. But with the advent of T20, cricket and the growing leagues around the world with new rules have actually discouraged the development of versatile cricketers.

“It’s a difficult question to answer, all-rounders don’t come along every day. There aren’t many in history. A lot of things, the amount of cricket played, definitely plays a role,” Kallis told PTI during an exclusive interview.

The former Proteas captain is in India to play Legends League Cricket. While he did not mention the Indian Premier League, the former KKR coach is not a big fan of the ‘Impact Player’ rule, where a team can substitute one player as required during the batting or bowling innings.

“A few T20 leagues have substitutes (IPL) and I am not a big fan of that because it takes the all-rounder out of your team. The teams that do not have good all-rounders now play with 12 men. I’m not a big fan of that.

“There are a lot of little things that mean there aren’t that many all-rounders at the moment, which is surprising because they add so much value to the game. But it’s a lot of little things coming together,” Kallis said.