Kallis will put country before club

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

South Africans who have an eye on their team’s preparations for the World Cup would have been alarmed to discover yesterday that Jacques Kallis had been signed by the Sydney Thunder to play in the Big Bash League (BBL) for the next two seasons.

The BBL fixtures have not yet been released, but last season the tournament ran from December 20 to February 7. If it follows a similar schedule next summer it would clash with SA’s last five one-day internationals - against West Indies in SA from January 16 to 28 - before the World Cup in Australasia.

But Kallis said yesterday he would put country before club.

“Nothing has been confirmed yet, and playing for SA takes preference,” he said from Fancourt’s halfway house shortly before taking on the back nine.

Kallis, the greatest cricketer SA have produced and in the same league as West Indian Garfield Sobers in world allrounder terms, has retired from tests and T20 internationals but remains available for ODIs. The 2015 World Cup is likely to be his SA swansong, assuming he is selected.

Having been a fixture in SA’s teams since 1995 and part of their No. 1 ranked test team, all that is missing from Kallis’ trophy cabinet is a World Cup winner’s medal. He will be 39 by the time the World Cup starts, and if he makes the cut he will join Pakistan’s Javed Miandad and Indian kingpin Sachin Tendulkar in an elite club of men who have played in six editions of the tournament.

SA are scheduled to play around 25 ODIs before they open their World Cup campaign against Zimbabwe in Hamilton on February 15. Kallis is expected to be available to play in most of the lead-up games, starting with three in Sri Lanka next month.

Unusually for a player of his stature, Kallis may have to prove a point in those matches having spent much of the Indian Premier League warming the bench in the Kolkata Knight Riders’ dugout.

Kolkata won the title but Kallis played in only half of their 16 games. He scored 72 in his first innings, against the Mumbai Indians, but did not reach 50 again. He also never took more than one wicket in a game and had an economy rate of 8.45.

The Knight Riders lost four times while Kallis was in the mix. They won all seven of the matches they played after his last game.

“It was difficult after they got on a role,” Kallis’ agent, Dave Rundle, said. “It’s not that they didn’t want to play him, but sometimes it’s difficult to change a winning team.”

Rundle was unwilling to say how much Kallis would be paid by the Thunder, but he confirmed that his client was “at the top” of the tournament’s salary scale. BBL teams each have a budget of just more than AUS$1-million - around R10-million at yesterday’s exchange rate - with which to sign 18 players. West Indian Chris Gayle has earned as much as AUS$250000 for a single BBL season.

Kallis is likely to have a job on his hands trying to put some thunder into his new team - they have finished last out of the eight competing teams in all three previous BBL tournaments.

* KwaZulu-Natal Cricket said in a release yesterday that coach Lance Klusener had been re-appointed for the next two seasons with an option to extend his contract for a third season.